VT Alpha Chapter Report

Institution: Saint Michael's College

Reporting Year: 2022-2023

Advisor: Amir Barghi

Advisor's Email Address: abarghi@smcvt.edu

Has There Been a Change in Chapter Advisor During the Past Year?: No

Permanent Faculty Correspondent: 

Permanent Faculty Correspondent's Email Address: 

Officers: President: Summer Chaponis; Vice President: Kevin Russell; Secretary: Aidan Westfall

Chapter Website: http://https://www.smcvt.edu/academics/honors-opportunities/honors-programs-in-fields-of-study/pi-mu-epsilon-mathematics/

Number of New Members: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 10

Activities: The annual Pi Mu Epsilon Lecture was held in conjunction with the Induction Ceremony on October 28, 2022. Our speaker was Dr. Jennifer Crodelle (Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Middlebury College) who gave a talk entitled “Exploring Synchrony in the Brain Through Mathematical Modeling”. Monthly Department Colloquia are co-sponsored by Pi Mu Epsilon, and PME officers often introduce the visiting speakers. One highlight is the September Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium featuring presentations by eight students who participated in summer research projects or internships, among them there were four 2022 PME inductees and the rest were continuing PME members: Jacob Burcroff ’23 – “Summer Internship as a Land Surveyor in Rural Connecticut”; Camille Gallagher ’24 – “Teaching Geometry: My Summer Breakthrough Experience”; Zachary Hinds ’23 – “A Dream Come True: My Software Development Internship at McDonald’s”; Chris Kombo ’23 – “Training Materials for Desired Functionality: REU at the University of Chicago”; Swapnil Jhajharia ’24 – “Prejudice and Discrimination Experienced by College Students with Marginalized Identities During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Approach”; Parker Lambert ’23 – “ Summer Research at Saint Michael’s on a Visualization Package in R”; Kevin Russell ’23 – “A Data-Driven Investigation into Causal Analysis”; Seamus Stein ’23 – “The Philosophical and Statistical Conceptions of Causation”.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present at the PME National Meeting this year? 

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduations? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences, etc.
Aidan Westfall ’23 participated in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition for the second time in Fall 2022. Parker Lambert ’23 and Seamus Stein ’23 will be pursuing a Master of Science degree in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (Health Data Science Concentration) at Dartmouth College, starting in June 2023. Chris Kombo '23 will be pursuing a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Vermont, starting Fall 2023. Brook Hodgeman ’23 will be pursuing a doctoral degree in Physics, focusing on condensed matter, at the University of Vermont, starting in Fall 2023.

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.