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2008 Election Candidates

Candidates for Councilor (four open positions)
Paul Fishback	Paul Fishback is completing his first three-year term as a Pi Mu Epsilon Councilor. He has taught at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Michigan since 1993. His research interests have encompassed several areas, and he has served as faculty mentor for undergraduate research projects funded by GVSU, the Council on Undergraduate Research, and the GVSU Mathematics REU program. In addition to serving as the founding faculty advisor of the Iota Section of PME at GVSU, Paul served as faculty advisor for the GVSU Mathematics and Statistics Club and co-founded, along with two of his colleagues, the Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, an annual event held for the past 10 years at various colleges and universities throughout his state. Paul finds his service as a PME Councilor to be very rewarding, especially insofar as it provides him many opportunities to promote undergraduate mathematics scholarship and other ideals of the Pi Mu Epsilon Society. He wishes to continue in his current role if given the opportunity to do so.
Maria Fung	Maria Fung is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Western Oregon University (WOU). Maria was instrumental in establishing a chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon at WOU in 2004 and she has served as the chapter advisor of the Delta Oregon Chapter since then. The WOU chapter has remained active, with student presentations at the annual WOU Academic Excellence Showcase Day, the Pacific Northwest MAA meetings, and the national Pi Mu Epsilon summer meetings at MathFest. Maria has had the good fortune to supervise three senior theses and various course projects (one of which was presented at MathFest in 2005 and won a prize). She is currently working with a very promising sophomore on a project involving the singularities of algebraic curves. Maria looks forward to contributing more of her energy to Pi Mu Epsilon, in whichever capacity the organization needs her.
Michelle Ghrist	Michelle Ghrist is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the U.S. Air Force Academy. She was inducted into the Ohio Gamma Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon as an undergraduate and has served as the chapter advisor of the Colorado Gamma Chapter since 2003. Her personal research interests are numerical methods for wave equations, undergraduate and secondary mathematics education, and applying mathematics to many diverse scientific and humanistic fields. She received BS degrees in mathematics and physics from the University of Toledo and her MS and PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She recently completed a three-year numerical analysis research project with an undergraduate who gave a Pi Mu Epsilon talk at the 2006 MathFest meeting. Michelle is also actively involved in the MAA’s American Mathematics Competitions; she has served on the AMC Advisory Panel since 2003 and is currently a member of the MAA’s AMC10/AMC12 SubCommittee of the Committee on the American Mathematics Competitions.
Jacqueline Jensen	Since receiving her PhD from the University of Oregon in 2002, Jacqueline Jensen has been an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. During her time there, she has reactivated the MAA student chapter while encouraging more than 70 students to attend and present at the MAA sectional meetings, Math Fest and the Joint Mathematics Meetings. With funding from the MAA and the Tensor Foundation, she founded the Piney Woods Lecture Series in mathematics, which brings female mathematicians to campus to present talks for undergraduates. She also founded the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, the third year of which brought together approximately 150 students to present talks, participate in panel discussions, and see presentations by well-known invited speakers. She is excited by the possibility of participating in PME as a Councilor, which would give her another opportunity to encourage student involvement in the mathematics community.
Kendra Kilpatrick	Kendra Killpatrick received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Following her graduation, she completed a three-year post-doctoral position at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado before beginning a tenure-track position at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She is currently an Associate Professor of Mathematics and has received Pepperdine’s highest award for teaching excellence. Kendra continues to actively pursue a research program in Combinatorics and has mentored a dozen students in undergraduate research projects with several of these projects concluding with published results. She greatly enjoys spending time with students and building a strong sense of community in the math department. While at Pepperdine, Kendra started a weekly colloquium for math majors, began publishing a bi-weekly department newsletter, established an active MAA Student Chapter and founded a thriving PME chapter. In addition, she is one of the founding organizers of the Pacific Coast Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, now in its third year and funded by the MAA, the NSA and Raytheon. The conference is the only conference specifically focused on undergraduates in the Southern California area and drew almost 200 participants with 32 student speakers in 2007. Nationally, she serves as a Regional Representative for the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. Her favorite math event of the year is the celebration of Pi Day and the Pepperdine Math Club’s Pi Day temporary tattoo sale that provides Pi Day tattoos to math clubs at high schools, colleges and universities around the country.
Angela Spalsbury	Angela Spalsbury is an Associate Professor at Youngstown State University (YSU) in Youngstown, Ohio. She has now served one term as a Councillor for Pi Mu Epsilon with her primary responsibility the scheduling of the student talks at Mathfest as well as the design and printing of the student program booklet for Mathfest. If elected to a second term, she will gladly continue to serve in this capacity. Angela has had over 15 years experience with Pi Mu Epsilon both as a student and a faculty advisor. She is currently advisor to one of the most dynamic PME chapters in the country. In addition to weekly meetings, mathematical talks, fund-raising, and various social events, the students in the YSU PME chapter host an undergraduate PME conference, bringing over 100 mathematics majors to campus. These students also enthusiastically participate in Mathfest, usually driven there by Angela. She received her BS degree from Kent State University, where she was president of PME as an undergraduate. She received her MSc degree from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and then returned to the United State to complete her PhD at Kent State University. She considers herself very lucky to work with such an energetic group of students!
Phil Yasskin	Phil Yasskin is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University with interests in Mathematical Physics, Computer Algebra Systems (especially Maple) and curriculum development (especially the incorporation of technology in local and distance education). He coordinates the Maple computer labs for the first and second semesters of Engineering Calculus. He has been the faculty advisor for the Math Club, Pi Mu Epsilon and MAA Student Chapter for over 10 years. Since 2002, he has served as the director of the TAMU Summer Educational Enrichment in Math for middle school students and since 2003, he has been a Co-Investigator on an NSF-GK-12 program advising graduate students on how they can help middle school teachers better present math to their students. He recently received the 2007 Department Outstanding Service Award for his work with students.
Candidates for Office
Joan Weiss	For Past-President: Joan W. Weiss is a Professor of Mathematics at Fairfield University (CT Gamma Chapter). She received a Doctor of Arts degree from Idaho State University, an MS from the University of Delaware, and a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was inducted into the Pennsylvania Epsilon Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. She has been the Permanent Faculty Correspondent and Advisor for the Connecticut Gamma Chapter since its installation in 1986. From 1996 to 2002 she was a Pi Mu Epsilon Councillor and during that time was the Business Manager of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal. In 2002 she was elected President-elect. She has enjoyed her time on the Council and participating in the many Pi Mu Epsilon activities at national meetings. She has been honored to serve as President and promises to continue to devote her energies to further the mission of Pi Mu Epsilon to promote and recognize students’ scholarly activity in the mathematical sciences.
Eve Torrence	For President-Elect: Eve Torrence is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Randolph-Macon College. She received a B.A. in mathematics and philosophy from Tufts University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She is completing her second term on Council where one of her duties is coordinating the judging of the student talks at the annual PME meeting at MathFest. In 1996 Eve helped five students establish the Virginia Iota chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon at R-MC. Virginia Iota chapter members have presented research talks at regional MAA meetings and at MathFest. Several R-MC students have won awards for their presentations from the MD-DC-VA Section of the MAA, and two students won the outstanding designation for their entry to the COMAP MathServe contest. Randolph-Macon students have published articles in the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, Math Horizons, and the UMAP Journal. Eve is also actively involved in the MAA and just finished a two year term as Chair of the Maryland-DC-Virginia Section. She won a 2007 Trevor Evans award for an article in Math Horizons. Eve is currently co-authoring the second edition of "The Student's Introduction to Mathematica" with Bruce Torrence.
David Sutherland	For President: David C. Sutherland is Associate Provost and Professor of Mathematics at Hendrix College in Arkansas. He received a B.A. Degree from Hendrix College and an M.A. and Ph.D. From North Texas State University. His area of specialty is combinatorics. As an undergraduate student he served as President of the Arkansas Beta Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. He had an undergraduate paper published in the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal and he made a presentation at a summer Pi Mu Epsilon meeting where he met and became friends with Dr. J. Sutherland Frame, a Pi Mu Epsilon legend. As a faculty member he has served as advisor for the Tennessee Gamma and the Arkansas Beta chapters. He has been the faculty advisor for seven student publications in the PME Journal; four of those papers received Andree Awards. He has served on the Pi Mu Epsilon Council since the spring of 2001 where he has served as webmaster. He is currently completing a term as President-Elect.
Brigitte Servatius	For Journal Editor: Brigitte Servatius holds Masters'degrees in mathematics and Physics from the Karl Franzens University, Graz, Austria and a Ph. D. degree in mathematics from Syracuse University. Her main areas of research are discrete mathematics (rigidity matroids), combinatorial group theory and discrete geometry. Since her sabbatical year in Slovenia in 2003/2004 she is working on a book on geometric configurations. She has written and edited books and classroom materials for a wide range of educational levels from "Bracing of Grids" for high school students to "Matroid Theory" on the research level. She has been on the editorial board of the College Mathematics Journal and editor of The PME Journal since 1999.
Leo Schneider	For Secretary-Treasurer: Leo Schneider is a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at John Carroll University near Cleveland. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Xavier University in Cincinnati and his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. As a new instructor at John Carroll, one of his first `extra duties as assigned' was to write the petition to start a chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. He was the Chapter Advisor of John Carroll's Ohio Lambda chapter for its first ten years. Others took over the Ohio Lambda Chapter leadership when he became heavily involved with the high school contest activities of the MAA on the national level. After 14 years of that intensive contest activity, he has returned to encouraging mathematics majors to attend regional undergraduate mathematics conferences and the annual summer Pi Mu Epsilon conference to make presentations, and just this year was reappointed at Ohio Lambda’s Chapter Advisor. He has completed three three-year terms on the Pi Mu Epsilon national Council, two of them as national Secretary-Treasurer.