Ohio Sigma Case Western Reserve University

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: David Singer

PFC: Christopher Butler

President: Ethan Teare

VP of Communications: Todd Norton

VP of Finance: Brian Widman

VP of Service: Jacob Lichtinger

Webmaster: Sander Mack-Crane

Chapter URL: https://www.case.edu/orgs/pime/exec.html

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 10

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Michigan Gamma Andrews University

Advisor: Joon H. Kang

PFC: Robert Moore

Officers:

President : Theron Calkins

Vice President : Louis Garibay

Secretary and Treasurer : Cecilia Dias

Number of New Members Inducted:9

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Pi Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honors society, has an active presence on Andrews University. This year’s officers are Theron Calkins serving as president, Luis Garibay as vice-president, and Cecelia Dias in the office of secretary/treasurer. The campus chapter is also overseen by Dr. Joon H. Kang. On September 23, Pi Mu Epsilon invited Eric ‘Siggy’ Scott, an Andrews alumnus currently studying computer science at George Mason University, to come and speak on artificial intelligence. Many people attended his lecture and posed some insightful questions to Scott at the end of the presentation. Our organization also sponsored another eigen*talk on October 7, featuring several student missionaries. Returning from Ebeye and Majuro in the Marshall Islands and Malawi, Africa missionaries Sinclair Johnston, Mateja Plantak, and Chris Greenley presented on their experiences. Johnston and Plantak both taught several classes abroad including some math ones while Greenley served as an IT specialist at a rural hospital. Each displayed many pictures and encouraged others to consider some of the unexpected ways one can help serve others overseas. During spring semester Pi Mu Epsilon sponsored two more eigen*talks, one by Dr. Shandell Henson on January 20 on the perturbation method for solving differential equations, and the second on February 17 with actuaries Daniel Moskala and Andrew Schupska from Auto-Owners Insurance discussing the actuarial profession, education, and career paths. In addition, Pi Mu Epsilon hosted a Pi Day celebration on March 14 and the annual induction ceremony on April 5 where Keith Calkins gave a presentation titled ¡°¡Ä Ado About ¥å¡± about continued fractions.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

 

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Massachusetts Eta Fitchburg State College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Mary Ann Barbato

President: Robert Patenaude

Vice-President: Jared Weed

Number of New Members Inducted: 2

Number of Continuing Members:

33

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The following members presented talks or posters at the 2012 Fitchburg State Annual Undergraduate Conference on Research and Creative Practice: Nicholas Kallfa, Nicholas Starr, Nicole Gilford, Jeremy Bohrer, Haley Schilling, Robert Patenaude and Jared Weed. Our chapter also held problem solving sessions and submitted a solution to a Problem in the Math Horizons Magazine.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Possibly.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Robert Patenaude received the Fitchburg State Mathematics Department Scholarship Award and Jared Weed received the Fitchburg State Outstanding Mathematics Student of the Year Award. Our recent graduate and new Mass Eta member, Jeremy Bohrer has been accepted into Iowa State University Graduate Mathematics Program and will begin in Fall 2012. In addition, Robert Patenaude and Jared Weed gave a poster presentation at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the AMS and MAA in Boston in January.

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship Grant, please briefly describe what took place during the councilor’s visit.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Illinois Alpha University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Chapter: Illinois Alpha
Institution:University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Report Year: 2011-2012 Chapter Report
Advisor:Bruce Reznick
Advisor’s email address:reznick@math.uiuc.edu
PFC: Alison Champion
PFC’s email address:abc@illinois.edu
Officers: President: Yifei Wu Vice-President: Kevin Yau Secretary: Errol Kutan Treasurer: Xiaolin Lin Webmaster: Julie Serwy (Fall 2011), Wei Cheng (Spring 2012)
Chapter URL:
Number of New Members:
Number of Continuing Members:
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:

We had an exciting and successful semester in Fall 2011 that featured two interesting activities: 1. Graduate school panel. We invited graduate students and the director of graduate studies to share their experiences and tips on the graduate application process. 2. Broomball vs MATRIX math club. It was a nice break from the usual scholarly activities and the game linked the two math organizations at UIUC and their members closer.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
One student member got accepted to Stanford University. Others continued to graduate studies, teach math at high schools and do internships at companies, etc.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

California Kappa Loyola Marymount University

 
 

Advisor:Robert Rovetti
Advisor’s email address:rrovetti@lmu.edu
PFC: Alissa Crans
PFC’s email address:acrans@lmu.edu
Officers: Hailey Rogerson, President
Chapter URL:
Number of New Members: 5
Number of Continuing Members: 7
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:
We celebrated Pi Day this year with a pizza and pie lunch. The club also organized a contest for designing department t-shirts; we came up with a great design, and will be handing out the shirts to our incoming freshmen this year.
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
None
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
This year we had six of our seniors accepted to graduate school: Brian Burnap (Cambridge), Kelly Blakeman (UC Riverside), Michelle Bongard (Rensselaer), Alondra Vega (UC Davis), Megan Ly (Boulder) and Kate Hake (UC Santa Barbara). Another senior, Carmen Casteneda, will be joining Teach for America.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
None.
Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

South Dakota Alpha The University of South Dakota

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Violeta Vasilevska

Officers:

Calvin Krogman

Anne Doshier

Vanessa Tisher

Number of New Members Inducted:

10

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

– Invited speaker: Dr. Jonathan Rogness from the University of Minnesota gave a talk titled: “Behind the Scenes of Möbius Transformations Revealed” – Watching the movie “The great Pi/e Debate – Which is the better number?”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

Not sure, yet!

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

N/A

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship Grant, please briefly describe what took place during the councilor’s visit.

N/A

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Xi Saint Joseph’s University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Paul Klingsberg

President: Sarah Hegarty

Vice President: Franci Dempsey

Number of New Members Inducted:

8

Number of Continuing Members:

3

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Dmytro Yersoshkin earned a score of 49 in last fall’s Putnam. This earned him a rank of 64.5 out of 3,753. Our induction featured a very stimulating talk on matroids and greedy algorithms by Prof. Stephen B. Maurer of Swarthmore College.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Yes: Dmytro Yeroshkin will be there.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Brittany Fasy ’07 (now at Duke) will be making a presentation at Mathfest. Jiaming Chen made a presentation at an economics conference; I do not have the particulars.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Beta Bucknell University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Emily Dryden

President: Brittany Hoffman

Vice President: Luke Mcguire

Secretary Treasurer:

Caitlyn Yeager (Fall 2007)

Elizabeth Skubak (Spring 2008)

Number of New Members Inducted:

6

Number of Continuing Members:

7

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

In September, our chapter sponsored a lunchtime discussion of summer opportunities for mathematics students. A panel of students shared what they had done the previous summer, and there was a handout with contact information and useful websites. Chapter members met the night before the panel to make desserts for the attendees. We held our annual banquet in April, which included a talk about Bessel and his contributions to astronomy and mathematics.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

One of our current members is the recipient of a Goldwater Scholarship. Several of our graduating members are continuing directly to graduate school, both in mathematics and in other fields (e.g., law). Several of our current members are participating in REUs this summer.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Ohio Xi Youngstown State University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Dr. Angela Spalsbury

President: Tyler Drombosky

Vice President: Doug Wajda

Treasurer: Krista Foster

Secretary: John Hoffman

Webmaster: Ryan Livingston

Number of New Members Inducted:

12

Number of Continuing Members:

DNR

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1) We hosted the tenth annual YSU PME Regional Conference where undergraduate mathematics majors presented mathematical talks. Over 100 students from 10 different colleges and universities attended. This year an effort was also made to invite local high school students who are interested in mathematics. 2) Four students of our students received Best Speaker Awards at Mathfest in San Jose, California. Those students were: Jeffery Cornfield, Tyler Drombosky, Ryan Livingston, and Matthew Ward.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Yes, we currently have nine members committed.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Erica Cross is participating in Ohio Wesleyan University’s REU/RET Program. Tyler Drombosky is participating in the National Security Agency’s Director’s Summer Program. Krista Foster is participating in NC State University’s Modeling and Industrial Applied Mathematics. John Hoffman is participating in CURMath at YSU in Covering Systems of Congruences (Number Theory). Ryan Livingston is participating in CURMath at YSU in Covering Systems of Congruences (Number Theory). Jared Ruiz is participating in University of Akron’s (CURMath at YSU) Covering Systems of Congruences. Jessica Shipman is participating in Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Layered Polymeric Systems. Tyler Drombosky, Jared Ruiz, and Doug Wajda, along with advisor Dr. George Yates attended a “Conference on Undergraduate Research in Mathematics” at Penn State University, November 9-10, 2007. Tyler Drombosky, a junior mathematics major at YSU, won the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship this year. This marks the second consecutive year that a YSU mathematics major received a Goldwater Scholarship. The team of David Martin, Erica Cross, and Matthew Alexander won an Outstanding Award at the 2008 international Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

New York Kappa Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Bruce Piper

President: Lindsey Garrett

Vice President: Heather Palmeri

Treasurer: Joshua Sauppe

Secretary: Jen Moyher

Recruitment Chair: Bianca Zongrone

Number of New Members Inducted:

38

Number of Continuing Members:

34

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Members attended the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics conference at Saint Lawrence University in Canton New York on April 19th, 2008. Members participated in the CoMap sponsored Mathematical Contest in Modeling, or the MCM. This year the contest was held February 14th, 2008 through February 17th, 2008. Students competed on campus to research either a soduko based problem or a global warming based problem.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Patrick Braash – Graduated with a BS in math and is working at NSA Ashley Thomas – Graduated with a BS and MS in math and plans to work on her PhD in applied math; gave a presentation on detecting tumors at the undergraduate math conference at Saint Lawrence Andrew Nixon – Graduated with a BS in math and physics MS in math; earned the distinction of meritorious in the MCM Lindsey Garrett – Earned the distinction of meritorious in the MCM Joshua Sauppe – Earned the distinction of meritorious in the MCM; received funding from the NSF to continue research on neural networks Dan Johnson – Earned the distinction of meritorious in the MCM; received funding from the NSF to continue research on neural networks Jen Moyher – Received funding from the NSF to continue research on neural networks Pamela Fuller – Received funding from the NSF to continue research on epidemiology Toni Wagner – Received funding from the NSF to continue research on epidemiology Tegan Webster – Gave a presentation on e.coli cell production at the undergraduate math conference at St. Lawrence Dan Ecreg – Graduated with a MS in math and is working at the NSA Tim Gilman – Studied abroad at UCL in London Dan Hathaway – Earned the distinction of meritorious in the MCM Tim Tusing – Gave a presentation at the undergraduate math conference at St. Lawrence Mary Jo Sorrentino – Graduated with a BS in math and management Bruce Piper – Earned a teaching award designed to recognize members of the Rensselaer faculty for their outstanding teaching techniques, contributions to the campus experience and commitment to students Lauren Schneider – Graduated with a BS in math

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

New Jersey Lambda William Patterson University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Dr. Madeleine E. Rosar

President: Philip C. Nelson

Vice President: Edwin Torres

Number of New Members Inducted:

14

Number of Continuing Members:

30

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We hosted the Spring 2008 AMS/MAA Joint Meeting for New Jersey and the Garden State Undergraduate Mathematics Competition. Kevin Obara presented a poster at the GSUMC on Business Applications (Black-Scholes-Merton Formula). Philip Nelson made an oral presentation at the GSUMC on Generalized Inverses of Singular-Square and Rectangular Matrices.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Philip Nelson was accepted into University of Maryland – Baltimore County for Graduate Studies in Mathematics.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Massachusetts Eta Fitchburg State College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Mary Ann Barbato

President:Charles Fisher

Number of New Members Inducted:

4 students, 3 faculty

New Inductees into the Massachussetts Eta Chapter

Number of Continuing Members:

2 students, 7 alumni, 4 faculty

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Induction ceremony of charter members in Oct. 2007 Metal 4 Math Concert in Fall 2007

Did any of your chapter members present papers at the 2008 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, WI?

Two Presentations:

  • Shawn Case, Dynamical Systems: Sink or Source!
  • Jennifer Crounse, Pascal’s Triangle in Secondary Education,

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Student Presentations:

  • Shawn Case, Analyzing an Electrical Circuit with Differential Equations: An Eigenvalue Approach, HRUMC 2008, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY.
  • Erin Farrel, poster presentation, Conference on Innovation in Undergraduate Research and Teaching, Montclair State University, NJ, June 2008. Colleen Rose, You’ve Used Graph Theory and You Didn’t Even Know It, HRUMC 2008, St. Lawrence University.
  • Charlie Fisher, Using Graph Theory in Homeland Defense, HRUMC 2008, St. Lawrence University.
  • Charlie Fisher, poster presentation, Conference on Innovation in Undergraduate Research and Teaching, Montclair State University, NJ, June 2008.
  • Colleen Rose, You’ve Used Graph Theory and You Didn’t Even Know It, HRUMC 2008, St. Lawrence University.

7 of our 9 charter members graduated. Michael Krul and Shawn Case have gone on to graduate school at the Unversity of Rhode Island. Jennifer Crounse, Colleen Rose, and Jennifer Amero have each secured a teaching position at a local High School. Robert Allaire is working as a mathematics editing assistant at Gex. Inc. and Gregory Croxford has applied to the NSA and is well into the interview process.

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship Grant, please briefly describe what took place during the councilor’s visit.

Not yet, but we have just been approved for a PME National Lectureship and Chapter Enhancement Program and will have our visitor, Brigitte Servatius (PME Journal Editor), in October 2008.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Massachusetts Gamma University of Massachusetts Lowell

 

Advisor and Officers:

Advisor: Stephen Pennell

President: Michael Williams

Vice President: Erin_Morrissey

Secretary/Treasurer: Dennis Holbrook

Number of New Members Inducted:

7

Number of Continuing Members:

5

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our only activity this year was the induction ceremony. Our guest speaker was alumnus Stan Kopec, whose topic was “Career Doors that Mathematics Opened for Me.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

No.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Indiana Epsilon St. Mary’s College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Joanne Snow

President: Anna Fricano

Vice President: Jackie Sias

Secretary: Sarah Robinson

Treasurer: Courtney Parry

Number of New Members Inducted:

12

Number of Continuing Members:

10

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The students organized two lectures given by two students who had participated in research projects in the fall. The students prepared fliers that were posted around the campus. There were two different fliers. The theme was “why study mathematics”.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Anna Fricano is attending graduate school in the fall. She will attend a bridge program over the summer. Sarah Robinson was awarded a John Culver Wooddy Scholarship (a scholarship for those pursuing an actuarial career). Courtney Parry presented a talk at the spring Indiana sectional meeting.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Illinois Zeta Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

 

Advisor: Adam Weyhaupt

Number of New Members Inducted:

12

Number of Continuing Members:

6

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Halloween Tricks & Treats – PME members brought candy (tricks) and a mathematical “trick or treat” to share. We heard about Vedic mathematics, tricks for divisibility, ways to visualize summing an infinite series, and other fun tricks. Movie Night – We got our library to purchase “Flatland – The Movie”, and we purchased popcorn and soda. We invited all math majors as well as the local high school’s math club. About 50 people attended our showing of the movie — it was a blast!

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Illinois Kappa Millikin University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Dr. James V. Rauff

President: Daniel Sumpter

Vice President: Erica Lindamood

Treasurer: Jacqueline Rempala

Secretary: Sarah Dial

Number of New Members Inducted:

7

Number of Continuing Members:

6

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Florida Iota University of Tampa

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor:Kari Fowler

President: Stephanie Branham

Vice President: Sarah Strickland

Number of New Members Inducted:

8

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had our first induction ceremony in over a decade.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Colorado Gamma United States Air Force Academy

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Michelle Ghrist

President: Joshua Sinkler (2008-2009)

Number of New Members Inducted:

11

Number of Continuing Members:

10

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We held a few game night meetings with cadets throughout the year.  Cadets and faculty members meet over food to play games like Apples to Apples and Boggle.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Jeremy Thompson will present a PME paper.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

The math department had five of our sixteen graduating math majors as distinguished graduates (~top 10% of graduates).  All were Pi Mu Epsilon members (Kenneth Grosselin III, Adam Stooke, James Bresnahan, Kimberly Kallabis, and Brianne Davidson). Kenneth Grosselin will be attending RAND graduate school for a PhD in Policy Analysis (math modeling specialty) on a RAND PhD Scholarship; he also won a NCAA Post-graduate scholar/athlete scholarship.  He was very active in track and cross country; he was also USAFA’s Class of 2008 #2 overall graduate and #2 graduate academically. Adam Stooke won a Hertz Foundation Fellowship and will be attending CU-Berkeley. Kimberly Kallabis will be attending MIT on a departmental scholarship.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Alabama Eta Troy University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Kenneth Roblee

President: Robby Doughan

Vice Presidents: Kelly Harrington and Aaron Murray

Secretary: Jenna Henderson

Number of New Members Inducted:

21

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1. We had our annual calculus competition in the spring. It was in the form of the game show “Jeopardy.” We gave cash prizes to the winner and runner-up. 2. We continue to have our “math movie night.” We watched the movie “Proof.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

1. For 2007-08, we have at least 3 students accepted to graduate school or already enrolled in graduate school. 2. One of our charter members (2004), already having completed his Master’s degree, is now working on his dissertation at Auburn University. 3. We had some of our students give presentations at our weekly mathematics seminar.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Wisconsin Delta St. Norbert College

Advisor: Professor Kevin Murphy

PFC: Terry Jo Leiterman

Officers:

President: Brian Pietsch

Vice-President: Nicole Harp

Treasurer: Kayla Pope

Chapter URL:

Number of New Members Inducted:

Number of Continuing Members: 2

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The 2010 PME Regional Undergraduate Math Conference set records for numbers of student speakers and attendance. The PME students helped recruit donors for the Red Cross Blood Drive on campus.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

5 students will speak: Caesar Cai, Ryan Hallberg, Nicole Harp, Brian Pietsch, and Abby Wendrick.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

No.

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

We received a matching grant to help support the regional conference.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Virginia Epsilon Longwood University

Advisor: David Shoenthal

Officers:

President: Sarah Mayfield
Vice President: Chris Thatcher
Secretary/Treasurer: Jeff Anway

Number of New Members Inducted: 7

Number of Continuing Members: 8

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Attendance at MD-DC-VA sectional meetings and SUMS meeting; end-of-semester tutoring activity.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes-Jeff Anway

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Crystal Peoples attended the Budapest Semester of Mathematics this past spring, is at an REU in Iowa this summer, and will attend the MASS program at Penn State this fall. Jeff Anway is attending an REU at James Madison University this summer.

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

The Problem of the Month continues to be successful. This year, first prize went to a graduating senior, Briana Wells. Second prize went to Jeff Anway.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Vermont Alpha Saint Michael’s College

Advisor: Zsuzsanna Kadas

Officers:

Co-presidents:Brittany Baker and Kaiti Tuthill

Number of New Members Inducted: 18

Number of Continuing Members: 9

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

At the annual Pi Mu Epsilon lecture held in conjunction with the Induction Ceremony, origami expert Prof. Thomas Hull (Western New England College) spoke on the topic “Origami-Math is in Creasing”. He also led a hands-on origami workshop where we collaborated to build some modular structures. The September Math Colloquium consisted of presentation by students who had participated in research projects: Brittany Baker, Emily Pratt, Mary Spuches, and Kaiti Tuthill. Monthly Department Colloquia are co-sponsored by Pi Mu Epsilon, and members introduce the visiting speakers.

Induction Ceremony on October 1, 2010: all student PME members and math faculty

 

Origami tower built at Tom Hull’s workshop, October 1, 2010

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Four students, including 3 PME members, have had a paper accepted by the American Journal of Undergraduate Research. The paper, “Design Optimization for DNA Nanostructures” by Andrew Gilbert, Jake Girard, Dan Lewis, and Mary Spuches, reports on work done under the mentorship of Professors Jo Ellis-Monaghan and Greta Pangborn. The work was supported by several sources: NSF, CURM, NIH-VT Genetics Network, NASA-VT Space Grant. Brittany Baker ’11 will participate in the competitive program for Women and Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University followed by the Bridge Program at Texas A & M. She has She will enter the Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota in the fall. JasonDecoteau ’12 is participating in a funded on-campus research project in mathematics/economics studying the demographics of Medicare funding. Andrew Gilbert ‘11 received the Outstanding Math Major award at graduation, and was also named Class of 2011 Valedictorian. He will pursue graduate studies in Classics at Boston College. Dan Lewis ’10 will begin graduate study at Notre Dame. Emily Pratt ’12 participated in the NASA-Vermont Space Grant project “Cubesat”, a small lunar lander which is to be launched in 2013. She presented her paper “Trajectory Design Using a Linearized Restricted Three-Body Problem” at the Smith College WIMIN conference in October 2010. Jaqui Tuthill ‘12 is attending the Statistics REU at the Claremont Colleges. Kaiti Tuthill ’11 is co-author of a paper that has been accepted by the Journal of Applied Mathematics. The paper “Constraint Consensus Methods for Finding Interior Feasible Points in Second Order Cones” is the result of work done at the NSF-REU at Northern Arizona University in Summer 2010.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Texas Theta University of Houston

Advisor: Dr. Mark Tomforde

Chapter URL: Texas Theta

Number of New Members Inducted: 13

Number of Continuing Members: 15

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had a talk by an actuary and student presentations on undergraduate research opportunities.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Texas Tau Midwestern State University

Advisor: Jeff Hood

PFC: Terry McDonald

Officers:

President: Chris Caruvana

Number of New Members Inducted: 12

Number of Continuing Members: 15-20

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The students participated in the Sikes Lake Cardboard Boat Race during Homecoming Week. The students competed in Math Jeopardy at the TORUS conference.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Sonny Skaaning will be attending graduate school at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Texas Eta Texas A & M University

Advisor: Prof Phil Yasskin

Officers:

President: Jeffrey Nolan
Vice President: Josh Meier
Secretary: Devin Light
AWM Chair: Cayleigh Hammit

Chapter URL: Texas Eta

Number of New Members Inducted: 46

Number of Continuing Members: 56

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

One of the interesting meetings had students from the undergraduate Mathematical Modeling class presenting their semester research projects. The projects included topics such as developing a model to quantify the effects of probiotics on the abundance of autochthonous intestinal bacteria, modeling and analysis of Coccidioidomycosis in the Endemic Regions of Texas, and modeling the optimal area of cooling zones following a marathon. Another interesting meeting was a presentation by Dr. Frank Sottile, titled “The Shape of Space.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes. Three are attending. One will compete in the problem solving contest and the other two will be presenting reports.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Texas Alpha Texas Christian University

Advisor: George Gilbert

Number of New Members Inducted: 4

Number of Continuing Members: 3

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had our annual spring Calculus Bee. We had 3 undergraduate math talks. One was on going for it on 4th down, with Efton Park of TCU’s Math Department and Coach Gary Paterson of TCU’s #2 ranked team.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Tennessee Epsilon Austin Peay State University

Advisor: Ben Ntatin

Number of New Members Inducted: 15

Number of Continuing Members: Not sure

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The 2011 spring semester Pi Mu Epsilon induction ceremony took place at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 12. During the ceremony, a total of 13 students and two faculty were inducted to the society. Dr. Jaime Taylor, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, spoke about “The Importance of Mathematics in Our Lives Today.” Dr. Taylor was also inducted that day.

2011 Induction Ceremony

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

James Wineger and Stephanie Jessie will be presenting papers.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Casey Mcnkight will work toward a Ph.D. in statistics at Stanford University in California. She will pursue her studies on a full tuition-paid scholarship, as well as teaching and graduate assistantships.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

South Carolina Alpha University of South Carolina

Advisor: Maria Girardi and Rhonda Sanders

PFC: Maria Girardi and Rhonda Sanders

Officers:

President: Brittany Gunn
Vice President: Ryan Benitez
Secretary: Kinsey Parrish
Treasurer: Richard Voepel

Chapter URL: South Carolina Alpha

Number of New Members Inducted: 16

Number of Continuing Members: 41

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Integration Bee and Undergrad Math Research Info Evening . For a very detailed explanation of these events, visit our web site. For photos, check us out on FaceBook.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

We hope to have a few.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Too many to mention!

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Xi St. Joseph’s University

Advisor: Paul Klingsberg

Officers:

President: Megan Rigler
Vice President: Robert Cocci and Tyler Gaspich

Number of New Members Inducted: 9

Number of Continuing Members: 13

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The chapter elected to induct 11 members of the SJU class of 1974 who were instrumental in the effort to establish a chapter here but who were not already members. These 11 are in addition to the 9 undergraduates elected, so in total, the chapter elected 20 new members.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Tyler Gaspich presented a summary of his summer 2010 research at the Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, Portland OR, Feb. 24-Feb. 27, 2011. Brian Klatt received the Math Department award to best graduating senior. Mr. Klatt will commence work on his Ph.D. in mathematics at Lehigh University in the fall. Megan Rigler received the Actuarial Science award to best graduating senior. She also received the University Student Senate Award for Scholarship, and she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Psi University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg

Advisor and PFC: Gary Hart

Officers:

President: Jake Wehar
Vice President: Maria Germansky

Number of New Members Inducted: 9

Number of Continuing Members: 7

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

During the spring of 2011, our chapter conducted our first annual Applied Mathematics Conference for Undergraduate Research in Sciences (AMCURS). Invitations were sent out to regional contacts at other colleges and universities. In total, we had students from 3 different colleges present their research to a panel consisting of their professors and peers. In addition to students giving presentations, we also extended invitations to local high schools in the area inviting their students to attend our conference and compete a mathematics challenge. Four different high schools visited our campus and competed in the challenge. Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place were awarded in the categories of “Best overall score” and “Best overall team score”. Pictures from the conference will also be included in the chapter report. In additon to conducting AMCURS, our chapter also takes time out every year to celebrate Pi Day on March 14th. During this event, students are invited to come enjoy refreshments (mainly pie), hear a presentation on the history of the number PI, and compete in a contest to see who can approximate pi to the greatest number of decimal places. Students are also invited to buy a ticket in which they will select a member of the math faculty to pie in the face. All ticket proceeds are donated to a charity of our choosing. The Pi day event/celebration is a nice way of engaging in mathematical converstation with other students as well as getting to know the Pitt-Greensburg math faculty a little better.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky? Unknown.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

As our chapter is only in its second year, there is no news of this kind to report yet.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Omega Washington & Jefferson College

Advisor: Ryan Higginbottom

Officers:

President: Sommer Sprowls
Vice President: Jennifer Magee

Number of New Members Inducted: 16

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

At our installation and induction ceremony, Dr. Jacqueline Jensen (Sam Houston State University) delivered a rousing presentation: “Unknotting Conjectures, or Everything I needed to know I learned by being a math major.” At the reception afterward caffeine and sugar were enjoyed by all.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Mu University of Scranton

Advisor: Jennifer Vasquez

PFC: Anthony Ferzola

Number of New Members Inducted: 7

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Perhaps

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Iota Villanova University

Advisor: Timothy Feeman

Number of New Members Inducted: 11

Number of Continuing Members: 12

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our annual induction event, held on April 26, 2011, featured a fascinating talk by Dr. Tony Rothman, of Princeton University, on Japanese Temple Geometry. The talk was based on Rothman’s book SACRED MATHEMATICS: JAPANESE TEMPLE GEOMETRY, co-authored with Hidetoshi Fukagawa.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

 

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Five of our students scored ten or more points each on this year’s Putnam Competition, with two students scoring over twenty points each. Our outstanding senior, Stephen Twigg, will be pursuing a doctorate in electrical engineering at UC-Berkeley.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Oregon Zeta Willamette University

Advisor: Professor Colin Starr

PFC: Joshua Laison

Chapter URL:

Number of New Members Inducted: 4

Number of Continuing Members: 12

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The Math Club (which includes PME) hosted an inter-collegiate “Ginormous Blokus” tournament. The club had constructed giant foam Blokus pieces and converted our second-floor patio into a Blokus board measuring about 15 feet on a side. We invited three other local universities to participate. We also hosted another Pi Day celebration with pizza (pie), pie, a running simulation of the Buffon needle experiment, a competition using Laura Taalman’s pi-themed sudoku, and more.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Jared Nishikawa, now a graduate student at University of Colorado, Boulder had a paper with two faculty members accepted for publication in the Pi Mu Epsilon journal.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Oregon Eta Lewis & Clark University

Advisor: Naimoi Cameron

Number of New Members Inducted: 23

Number of Continuing Members: 11

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our chapter activities this year included an Installation Ceremony on March 1 and a Pi Day Celebration on March 15, which hosted 5 middle school teams in a fun-filled math competition, including problem contests, a circle-drawing contest, a Pi eating contest and Pi recitation contest.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Alyssa Kent ’11 will enter the graduate school at UC Irvine. Juan Cervantes ’11 will enter graduate school at University of Iowa, Geoinformatics for Environmental and Energy Modeling and Prediction IGERT Program. Evan Carmean ’10 will be entering the Peace Corps. Jacob Owens ’11 has received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellowship in South Korea.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Oregon Epsilon Linfield College

Advisor: Marth VanCleave

Officers:

President: Sarah Wilder
Vice President: Kyel Lambert
Secretary: Fredrick Wilhelm
Treasurer: Rebecca Coffelt

Number of New Members Inducted: 11

Number of Continuing Members: 6

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

This year we held a raffle fundraiser. Tickets were 50 cents a piece and were placed toward specific professors, who were willing participants. On Pi day, the four professors with the most tickets were pied; each by a student who won the raffle for that specific professor. We rasied around $90! We also made Oregon Epsilon Chapter PME shirts!

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Oklahoma Delta East Central University

Advisor: Dr. Anita M Walker

Number of New Members Inducted: 4

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our four newest members were inducted during the College of Health and Sciences Award Evening in April. PME members joined ECU Math Club members in a special Pi Day activity for students from Bethel Public Schools after spring break.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Ohio Lambda John Carroll University

Advisor: Tom Short

Officers:

President: Roy Bower
Vice President: Michael Joseph
Secretary: Louis Paumier
Treasurer: Kaylee Sutton

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 12

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We celebrated National Pi Day (3/14) on March 14, with a large group of students and faculty coming together for some mathematical fun. With computer-generated background music provided by rendering the first 5,000 or so digits of Pi as musical notes, the 41 people in attendance each signed their names to a paper band representing one of the first 41 decimal digits of Pi. The bands were then made into links of a “Pi-chain,” to which additional links will be added in future years. There was a Pi trivia contest, Pi-related web videos and, of course, lots of pie to eat! Two Ohio Lambda Chapter members presented talks at the meeting of the Ohio Section of the Mathematical Association of America at Youngstown State University on March 25 and 26. Sophomore Brian Harrison II presented the results of his research in his talk “From Primes to Polygons,” and junior Bob Short presented his research in number theory in his talk “Generalizing the Collatz Conjecture.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Mike Joseph will begin working on a doctorate in Mathematics at the University of Connecticut. Roy Bower will be entering the Masters Program in Applied Statistics at Villanova University. Kaylee Sutton will work toward her Master of Science in Mathematics at John Carroll University.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Psi Iona College

Advisor: Professor Robert Lavalle

Officers:

President: William May

Number of New Members Inducted: 10

Number of Continuing Members: 2

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Pi Mu Epsilon celebrated a good year with the Iona College Mathematics Society with ICMS’s annual “Pizza and Problems”.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Nicole Mingione is continuing her education in Iona College’s Graduate program. Nick Florio is working as a Microbiology tech/Laboratory Assistant at Northern Westchester Hospital. William May submitted a paper along with Dr. Lisa J. Evered entitled “A JAVA Program for the Gale-Shapley Algorithm” to the HUIC (Hawaii University International Conference). The conference was held in Honolulu, O’ahu, Hawaii on June 13 – 15, 2011.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Pi SUNY Fredonia

Advisor: Joseph Straight

Number of New Members Inducted: 27

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Induction of 27 new members was held on April 14 as part of the Department of Mathematical Sciences Annual Awards Dinner. Approximately 120 people attended the dinner. Eighteen undergraduates, including eight members of Pi Mu Epsilon, attended the Spring Conference of the Seaway Section of the Mathematical Association of America, April 1 – 2, at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. The following members gave talks: Steven Lockwood, Generalized Ellipses: The Case of Weighted Means Bernard Moore: Pythagorean Triples Modulo a Prime

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Phi SUNY Potsdam

Advisor: Cornelia Yuen

Officers:

President: Jeremy Amidon
Vice President: Rebecca Shoemaker
Secretary: Brittany Yando
Treasurer: Nick Ahlfeld

Number of New Members Inducted: 14

Number of Continuing Members: 29

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

A few of our members participated in REUs last summer, and gave talks about what they learned (mathematically and more generally) in their program. Also, we had our annual end-of-semester game and pizza night. We had a decent turn out this year, and everybody present had a good time socializing with their fellow students and some faculty members.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No, I don’t think so.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Quite a few members got awards and scholarships from our math department. Also, four of our graduates will start their Ph.D. programs in mathematics this coming Fall semester. A couple students presented at MathFest last summer, and a couple other students presented at the St. Lawrence Valley Mathematics Symposium.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Omicron Clarkson University

Advisor: Aaron Luttman

Officers:

President: Joshua Lamontagne
Vice President: Kristopher Lee
Secretary: Steven Foti
Treasurer: Amber Clinton

Number of New Members Inducted: 36

Number of Continuing Members: Unknown

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our chapter co-sponsored, with funding from the PME national organization, the 3rd Annual Saint Lawrence Valley Mathematics Symposium, an undergraduate research conference in the mathematical sciences that is hosted here at Clarkson University. We also co-sponsored a visit by Dr. Timothy Chartier of Davidson College, who presented on “The Force of Math in Star Wars.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes!

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Our outgoing Math Club President and former PME chapter treasurer, Xiaojing (Ruby) Fu will be attending graduate school at MIT. Our newly elected Math Club President and PME Secretary, Clarice Dziak, will be spending this summer at the National Security Agency.

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

We received a conference grant for the 3rd Annual Saint Lawrence Valley Mathematics Symposium. Fifteen colleges and universities were represented by over 100 registered participants. The keynote address, given by Dr. David Kung of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, was attended by over 130 people, and there were over 30 student presentations. The PME money was specifically used to purchase prizes for a drawing at the end of the conference.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Mu Yeshiva University

Advisor: Professor Kira Adaricheva

Officers: Elisa Karp, Elana Rosengard

Chapter URL:

Number of New Members Inducted: 19

Number of Continuing Members: 2

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The talk of Prof. Hamel on financial mathematics and a sudoku competition.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Robert Rand from Yeshiva college presented the talk based on his Honor’s project.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Rira Carla Bron got accepted to financial mathematics program at Columbia University. The paper of Adina Erdfarb was accepted to the presentation at PME national meeting in Kentucky. Robert Rand’s honor’s project became a part of joint paper with K.Adaricheva and J.B.Nation. It was presented at two conferences in summer, one of them in Marseille, France (TACL-2011). The paper will be also presented at ISAIM-2012 in Florida. The paper is to appear in Discrete Applied Mathematics.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Xi Plattsburgh State University of New York

Advisor: Gregory Quenell

PFC: Gregory Quenell

Officers:

President: Jessica Brown

Number of New Members Inducted: 10

Number of Continuing Members: 1

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

 

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Theta Skidmore College

Advisor: Una Bray

Advisor Address: Math. & Comp. Sci. Dept Skidmore College Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

PFC: Mark Huibregtse

Officers:

President: Cooper Boniece
Vice President: Jay Brett
Secretary: Sara Keeney

Number of New Members Inducted: 13

Number of Continuing Members: 8 students and faculty

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1. In the fall, we held a mathematical “Family Feud” night, which turned out to be a lot of fun.
2. In the spring, we changed the format of our induction ceremony to include a sit-down dinner followed by a brief mathematical “entertainment” and induction ceremony. We hope to continue this “upgraded” ceremony format in the future.
3. Skidmore hosted the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference this year (in April), and some PME members assisted with the logistics.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Not to my knowledge, but there may be some faculty attending the MathFest.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

The winners of the department’s two top prizes (the DeSieno and Taylor prizes) were won by two senior PME members this spring: Cooper Boniece and Alexandra McGuire.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Pi Marist College

Advisor: Matthew Glomski

PFC: Joe Kirtland

Officers:

President/Secretary: Kristen Zirkel
Vice President/Treasurer: Andrew Paulsen

Number of New Members Inducted: 27

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our PME induction ceremony took place on March 24, 2011 at Marist College’s historic Cornell Boathouse. Twenty five students and two faculty were inducted. The keynote address was delivered by Dr. John McCleary of Vassar College: “Pi(x), mu(x) and epsilon: Primes and their distribution.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Olivia Brozek: Klaus Fischer research assistantship, PhD program at George Mason University; Michael Caiola: PhD program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Daniel Espina: PhD program at University of North Carolina Charlotte; Megan Joyce: Masters program at Hunter College (CUNY); James Kreinbihl: PhD program at Wesleyan University. Three PME student members are attending summer mathematics REU: Patrick Cummings, Jennifer Kile and Thomas Murphy. Five PME student members presented papers or posters at local conferences: Michael Caiola, Daniel Espina, James Kreinbihl, Eric Kopser and Emily Schroder.

 

 

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Delta SUNY College at Geneseo

Advisor: Aaron Heap

PFC: Patrick Rault

Chapter URL: New York Alpha Delta

Number of New Members Inducted: 11

 

Number of Continuing Members: 2

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had a splendid induction ceremony this year, in which former and long-term chapter adviser Olympia Nicodemi was Master of Ceremonies. In December we had a high number of 11 students participate in the Putnam Exam, to which we awarded the top two participants our chapter’s Pi Mu Epsilon Putnam Prize ($75 to first place, $25 to second). This is the second year we have offered the prize, and beforehand participation was usually 3 students.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Chapter adviser Patrick Rault will attend, with students Kirill Lazebnik and Jeffrey Singer. Kirill will be giving a talk in the PME student session.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

As usual, we have several students beginning Ph.D. programs in mathematics or masters programs in education, receiving competitive job offers in industry, and beginning teaching careers: we view our students highly! At our college’s annual GREAT Day (Geneseo Recognizing Excellence, Achievement & Talent) undergraduate symposium, many students gave talks and presented posters. In addition, student presentations have been given at the MAA Seaway section Spring 2011 conference and the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference; at the former, the Geneseo team placed first in the student Math Jeopardy competition.

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

In December we had a high number of 11 students participate in the Putnam Exam, to which we awarded the top two participants our chapter’s Pi Mu Epsilon Putnam Prize ($75 to first place, $25 to second). This is the second year we have offered the prize, and beforehand participation was usually 3 students. Increasing from a 3-student average to 11 students is a big achievement! We have also seen increases in the number of students interested in other competitions, such as the University of Rochester Math Olympiad and “The Problem Solving Competition” related to Mathfest.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New Jersey Nu Ramapo College of New Jersey

Advisor and Officers:

Advisor: Dr. Katarzyna Potocka

Officers:

President/Secretary: Joseph Giovannone

Vice-President/Treasurer: Katelyn McGlynn

Number of New Members Inducted:

9

Number of Continuing Members:

30

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1) In December 2010 two of the chapter members, Zhasmina Baramova and Keith Veenhuizen, participated in the Putnam Competition. 2) In March 2011 the chapter participated in the New Jersey Undergraduate Mathematics Competition.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

 
 
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Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

New Jersey Lambda William Patterson University

Advisor: Prof M. Rosar

Number of New Members Inducted: 11

Number of Continuing Members:

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Nebraska Alpha University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Advisor: Daniel Toundykov

PFC: Allan Donsig

Officers:

President:Tyler Lemburg
Vice President:Jay Cummings
Secretary:Zach Norwood
Treasurer: Adam Azzam

Chapter URL: Nebraska Alpha

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 7

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

On Monday, November 1, 2010, Professor James Sellers delivered the Fourth Annual Pi Mu Epsilon Lecture – “Revisiting What Euler and the Bernoullis Knew About Convergent Infinite Series”. The talk was attended by about 80 participants most of whom were undergraduate students. We are continuing the tradition of having undergraduate students talk about their research and outreach activities. Two students presented their work in the fall of 2010.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

PME Member Zach Norwood has become the first University of Nebraska-Lincoln student to win the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and one of 30 in the United States this year. The scholarship is for graduate study in any field at the University of Cambridge in England.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Montana Alpha University of Montana

Advisor: Nikolaus Vonessen

Officers:

President: Stephanie Bell

Number of New Members Inducted: 9

Number of Continuing Members: 15

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Twice this semester we had presentations by undergraduate students: On March 15, several students shared their experiences with research in general, participating in REU’s, and presenting at conferences (all while being paid!). And on April 26, three students gave presentations on their research projects.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Missouri Gamma Saint Louis University

Advisor: Julianne Rainbolt

Number of New Members Inducted: 19

Number of Continuing Members:

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Missouri Epsilon Northwest Missouri State University

Advisor: Dr. Russell Euler

Officers:

President: Samantha Wylie

Vice President: Erin Johnson

Secretary: Cassie Gilland

Number of New Members Inducted:

6

Number of Continuing Members:

9

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our chapter held a three-day book/bake sale that began on Pi Day this year. We had great support from faculty, staff, and peers, which led to a very successful event. The money raised at the sale went toward providing “Luck of the Pi-rish” t-shirts that were sold at the Math Olympiad on campus.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Two of our graduating members have recently been offered positions as high school mathematics teachers beginning Fall 2011. Another graduating member will be attending graduate school beginning this summer.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Mississippi Delta Mississippi College

Advisor: Gayla Dance

President: Josh Whitam

Number of New Members Inducted:

7

Number of Continuing Members:

12

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Three chapter members participated in an integration bee and a team math contest, sponsored by the regional section of the Mathematical Association of America at the MS/LA meeting in Oxford, MS. On Friday, February 25, in a field of 30 teams, one of the Millsaps teams earned 5th place. Please congratulate the following members of the Millsaps Math Teams: Yue (Joyce) Jiang, Lihuang (Sean) Zhu, Andy Schmegal, Matthew Elliott, Alexander Olinger, and Michael Bell with Team Advisor Dr. Yan Wang. On Thursday, February 24, the Louisiana/Mississippi section of the MAA hosted its annual Integration Bee. This is similar to a spelling bee, but with integrals from calculus. Each college or university in Mississippi or Louisiana was invited to enter at most four students, who competed individually. In a field of 39 students, Yue (Joyce) Jiang won 2nd place.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Two of our newest members have been accepted to medical school.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Minnesota Iota Augsburg College

Advisor: Jody Sorensen

Officers:

President: Brian Love

Vice President: Jack Christopherson

Treasurer: Tom Lopez

Number of New Members Inducted:

12

Number of Continuing Members:

4

2011 Inductees

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our induction ceremony on March 3 was a big success. There were parents and cupcakes and this fun video: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11259827/Why_Pi_Mu_Epsilon%3F We will be bringing a group of students to our local PME conference at St. John’s University in April. We’re excited to hear the talks by Bill Dunham.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Minnesota Delta St. John’s University / College of St. Benedict

Advisor: Prof Tom Sibley
PFC: Prof Jennifer Galovich

Number of New Members Inducted: 6

Number of Continuing Members: 15

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

In the fall semester, we decorated our tensegrity tower with mathematical Christmas decorations and entered it in the Christmas tree decorating contest held for student clubs. To the students’ surprise, we didn’t win the award for the most creative decorating, but we definitely had fun. This spring we had our most successful Pi Mu Epsilon conference–our 32nd one. William Dunham was our featured speaker and everyone was enthusiastic about his talks. We had 157 people in attendance, a record. Thanks to our Pi Mu Epsilon grant, we were able to give each of the sixteen student speakers a copy of Dunham’s book _Journey Through Genius_, autographed by the author. In addition, since we had four more copies, we presented them to our mathematics majors who spoke at our campus Scholarship day. (So that we don’t dominate our Pi Mu Epsilon conference with our own students, we encourage this split. Our chapter has an additional requirement of a public mathematical presentation in an appropriate venue.)

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes. Kelsey Larson and Hongying Zhao

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Cong Van will go to Kansas State for math grad school. David Byrne will go to Bowling Green State for math grad school. Sara Kokkila will go to Stanford U. for computational chemistry grad school. Kristin Reinsvold will go to U. of Nebraska for an MD/PhD program and anticipates to include mathematical biology on the research side. She spoke at Mathfest last summer and won the CUR prize. Matt Donner presented his research at NCUR. Matt Donner and David Byrne presented their research at the CURM conference in Provo, Utah. All five of these students wrote honors theses. Kelsey Larson and Hongying Zhao will be doing summer research. All of these students spoke about their research either at our PME conference or our Scholarship Day.

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

Thanks to our Pi Mu Epsilon grant, we were able to give each of the sixteen student speakers a copy of Dunham’s book _Journey Through Genius_, autographed by the author. In addition, since we had four more copies, we presented them to our mathematics majors who spoke at our campus Scholarship day.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Michigan Gamma Andrews University

Advisor: Joon H. Kang

PFC: Robert Moore

Officers:

President: Theron Calkins
Vice President: Andrew Hoff
Secretary: Sandra Prieto
Treasurer: Sandra Prieto

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

There was the Pi Day(March 11) celebration of 2011. Many students who have interest in Mathematics came and joined the mathematics department, and shared various kinds of pie. In the eigen talk of January 15, 2011, many people came and joined to watch a video about “Flatland” provided by Theron Calkins.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

(1) Katie Parker, one of the graduates, was accepted to the graduate school of chemical engineering of Wayne State University for Fall 2011. (2) Eric Scott, one of the graduates, was accepted to the graduate school of computer science of George Mason University for Fall 2011. (3) Luis Garibay, a second year mathematics and chemistry major, won the American Chemical Society scholarship.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Massachusetts Theta Simmons College

Advisor: Donna L. Beers

PFC: David S. Browder

Number of New Members Inducted: 12 students

Number of Continuing Members: 6 students, 2 faculty

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

At our second annual induction ceremony held in December 2010, the President of Simmons College, Helen Drinan, and the Chair of the Mathematics and Statistics Department, David Novak, welcomed friends and relatives of the new inductees which highlighted the importance of this occasion. In brief remarks preceding the induction of the new members, the Chapter Adviser described the historical role of mathematics in the liberal arts and illustrated the breadth of mathematics today by describing research projects undertaken by the new inductees. A new activity we initiated this year was to host an annual spring Pi Mu Epsilon lecture. Our speaker was alumna Estella Kanevsky (Class of 2007) who recently completed her M.S. in Biostatistics at Yale University. Her talk focused on the central role of observational studies in her health research. The title of her talk was “The Use of Observational Studies to Analyze Breast and Brain Lesions.”

2011 Induction Ceremony

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes, Chapter Adviser Donna Beers attended the 2011 PME national meeting.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Massachusetts Eta Simmons College

Advisor: Donna L. Beers

PFC: David S. Browder

Number of New Members Inducted: 12 students

 

Number of Continuing Members: 6 students, 2 faculty

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

At our second annual December induction, the President of the College, Helen Drinan, as well as the chair of the mathematics department, David Novak, welcomed relatives and friends of the new Pi Mu Epsilon members and helped to make this year’s induction program meaningful. Also, this year we initiated an annual spring Pi Mu Epsilon lecture. Our guest speaker was alumna Estella Kanevsky (Class of 2007) who recently completed her M.S.in Biostatistics at Yale University. The title of her presentation was “The Use of Observational Studies To Analyze Breast and Brain Lesions.”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Yes, the Chapter adviser, Donna Beers, will attend and present a paper.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Maryland Delta Hood College

Advisor: Betty Mayfield

Officers:

President: Matthew Shives

Vice President: Christopher DiGangi

MD Delta Induction Ceremony

Number of New Members Inducted:

8

Number of Continuing Members:

12

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Annual Pi Mu Epsilon Lecture: Dr. Michael Pearson, MAA, “A Ramble around the History of Pi.” Induction ceremony: The College president and provost attended, along with mathematics students and faculty and family members. We celebrated afterward with a reception and our traditional PME cake. We note that our long-time faculty correspondent, Judy Seymour, is retiring this year. We’re not sure we can get along without her.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No, maybe next year!

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Several of our students will participate in summer research programs: Kizza Nandyose will participate in the RIPS (Research in Industrial Projects) program at UCLA. Dubravka Bodiroga will participate in the Hood College Summer Research Institute. Chris DiGangi has been accepted into the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program at NIST.

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

We awarded the Pi Mu Epsilon Book Prize at the College’s Honors and Awards Program to two graduating seniors, Chad Doremus and Derrick Kuhn. We gave each of them a copy of “Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth,” the graphic novel about Bertrand Russell and the foundations of logic.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Louisiana Theta Loyola University New Orleans

Advisor: Maria Calzada

Officers:

President: Jamal Lawson
Vice President: Holly Gardner
Secretary: Leah Birch
Treasurer: Christina Martinez

Number of New Members Inducted: 6

 

Number of Continuing Members: Unknown

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The Joint Mathematics Meetings were in New Orleans this year. This presented a special opportunity for our chapter. Two of our members, Jamal Lawson and Holly Gardner, presented the results of their undergraduate research at the meetings. They both did an outstanding job. Jamal’s poster presentation received the award of best undergraduate poster. Our induction ceremony was very nice this year. We had a joint ceremony with the Physics Honor Society. Dr. Darryl Steiner, a physics professor, was the main speaker at the ceremony. He emphasized what makes the study of Physics and Mathematics special.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Not this year.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

This year Leah Birch, a new inductee, received the Goldwater Scholarship.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Louisiana Beta Southern University and A & M College

Advisor: Dr. Deborah L. Clark

Officers:

President: Adrianna Guillory
Secretary: Joseph Walker
Treasurer: Dr. D. L. Clark
PME Committee Co-Chair: Mr. Christopher Marshall
Advisor: Dr. Katrina Cunningham

Number of New Members Inducted: 2

 

Number of Continuing Members: 9

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our 2011 Spring Induction Program activity was interesting and exciting in our effort to re-activate the chapter. On April 19th, we inducted two mathematics majors, Adrianna Guillory and T’Era Hartfield. Both learners had at least a 3.4 GPA in their major and overall. The induction ceremony was well attended with retired professor, current professors, friends of the inductees, and learners in and from the Master of Science graduate program in Mathematics. Freddie Spencer, a prospective summer graduate, was our presenter during the induction program who spoke on ‘ALTERNATE ESTIMATION OF KINETIC TRIPLETS USING CALCULUS’. The recently designed national PME buttons were distributed to our new members, and to current & graduated Master of Science learners previously inducted into Louisiana Beta.

New members of Louisiana Beta Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon are (lt. to rt.) T’Era
Hartfield and Adrianna Guillory at Southern University and A&M College in
Baton Rouge, LA.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

We do not have chapter members who plan to attend or present at MathFest this year. However, we will work on attending &/or presenting for next summer.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

We proudly announce Learner Joseph Walker, an intern in Washington, DC. in the Quality Education for Minorities/National Science Foundation 10 week program; and Learner T’Era Hartfield, a participant in the Secondary Holmes Program at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA as our newsworthy honorees.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Kentucky Eta Centre College

Advisor: Alex M. McAllister

PFC: Alex M. McAllister

Officers:

President: Guoke Yang

Number of New Members Inducted: 7

Number of Continuing Members: 7

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

This year our group just inducted new members and presented them to the community at the annual campus-wide Honors Convocation. The members of Pi Mu Epsilon are also very active in the student mathematics club. This year the student math group beat the Chemistry Department in the 12th annual croquet tournament and lost to the Government Department in the first annual cornhole/beanbag-toss tournatment (but just by a single throw!).

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

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

Two years ago, Angela Spalsbury visited Centre through the PME Good Lectureship Program. Based on her encouragament, Lesley Wiglesworth took the lead in applying for sponsorship for a Fall 2011 undergraduate research conference. The First Annual Bluegrass Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium will take place at Centre College on September 17th. More info here.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Illinois Mu Olivet Nazarene University

Advisor: Dale K. Hathaway

Officers:

President: Carl Trank

Number of New Members Inducted: 9

Number of Continuing Members: 10

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

2007 Alumni Heather Makarewicz spoke on graduate school and her experience at NASA. Her talk was on November 4, 2011. We had our first Putnam team this year. Four students participated and two scored points.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Mark Lockwood and Dale Hathaway had a paper published in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics entitled “Probabilistic Polyforms”. Andrw Clark was accepted into a Master’s program at Eastern Illinois University with a Teaching Assistantship.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Georgia Epsilon Valdosta State University

Advisor: Dr. Denise Reid

President: William Dunn

Number of New Members Inducted:

3

Number of Continuing Members:

0

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Math Competition on March 5, 2010. Received a PME matching grant that was used for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the mathematics competition.

Math Competition: Denise Reid (faculty advisor), Juston Bryant (2nd place in math contest), William Dunn (1st place in math contest, inductee, and President 2011-2012), Lin Yen (honorable mention in math contest), Antonijia Tangar (3rd place in math contest), and Janice Lowe (faculty advisor)

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

A 2008 graduate, Katie Klimko, is graduating this year from Harvard with her law degree.

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

Received a PME matching grant fro $50 that was used for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the mathematics competition.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Florida Iota University of Tampa

Advisor: Kari Fowler

Officers:

President: Robyn Lett

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 6

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Pi Mu Epsilon/Math Club hosted several speakers on topics in math applications.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Florida Epsilon University of South Florida

Advisor: Fernando Burgos

PFC: Mile Krajcevski

Officers:

President: Gregory Churchill
Vice President: Mark Diba

Number of New Members Inducted: 10

Number of Continuing Members: 25

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The “Florida Epsilon PME Outstanding Sholars” this year were graduatin math seniors Mary Billington, Greg Churchill, and Pedro Gomez:. They received plaques and $200.00 in scholarship money at the PME Induction Banquet in April. 2)In conjunction with the USF Student Chapter of the MAA, 13 meetings were held during the academic year. Four of the math presentations at those meetings were given by math undergraduate students.

Outstanding Scholars, graduating math seniors (from left to right) Pedro Gomez, Mary Billington, and Greg Churchill

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Florida Beta Florida State University

Advisor: Esther Diaguila

PFC: Bettye Anne Case

Officers:

President: Vivek Pal
Vice President: Aysley Casburn
Secretary/Treasurer: Heather Holbach

Number of New Members Inducted: 24

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

No.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Connecticut Zeta Sacred Heart University

Advisor: Ryan Mullen

Officers:

President: Kyle Evans
Vice President:
Secretary:
Treasurer:

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had a star battle battle, where we raced to see who could finish a star battle puzzle the fastest.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

Not that I know of. There is one shaky maybe.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Connecticut Gamma Fairfield University

Advisor: Joan Weiss

Officers:

President: Matthew Shugrue
Vice President: Christine Capele
Secretary: Michael Powell
Treasurer: Joseph Mauro

Number of New Members Inducted: 27

 

Number of Continuing Members: 4

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Sponsored a Panel of Students who had REU’s and Internships in the summer of 2010. A sponsor of “Calculus the Musical”

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Christine Caples ’11 will enter the PhD Program in Mathematics at the University of Iowa fully funded Joseph Mauro ’11 will enter the PhD Program in Economics at Fordham University fully funded.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Colorado Gamma U.S. Air Force Academy

Advisor and PFC: Dr. Kurt Herzinger

Number of New Members Inducted: 8

Number of Continuing Members: 9

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

David Cooke – Grad School at the Air Force Institute of Technology
John Kessler – Grad School at MIT
Eric Robinson – Grad School at MIT
Dylan Asmar- Grad School at MIT
Nichole Stilwell – Grad School at Rice Univ
Nolan Sweeney – Grad School at RAND

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

California Nu Sonoma State University

Advisor: Professor Jean Bee Chan

Officers:

President: Robin Decker

Treasurer: Michael Harris

Chapter URL:

Number of New Members Inducted: 3

Number of Continuing Members: 7

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1.) Our chapter was awarded the Good Lectureship Grant, at which Dr. Brigitte Servatius gave a very interesting lecture on “Hyperperfect Numbers and a Beautiful Mind”.

2.) There was a Math and Stats Festival in Spring, including a lecture by Keith Devlin on First Person Solvers: Mathematics Education in the Video Game Era”, awards ceremony for students and dinner.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Y Vu is working at Kenilworth Jr High in Petaluma. Luis Soto has a teaching position in Sonoma. Brian Speck is also teaching. Ethan Baldinger is in the doctoral program at UC Santa Cruz.

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

Our chapter was awarded the PME Lectureship Grant in Fall 2010. Dr. Brigitte Servatius of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Mathematics Department spoke on “Hyperperfect Numbers and a Beautiful Mind”. This event was a great success, and the lecture hall was overflowing.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Alabama Eta Troy University

Advisor and PFC: Kenneth Roblee

Officers:

President: Treyce Addison
Vice Presidents: Elizabeth Tidwell and Christian Randolph
Secretary: Carry Cawley
Treasurer: Xavier Brooks

Number of New Members Inducted: 16

Number of Continuing Members: 20

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1. We had “Math Game Night,” where members participated in a variety of board and card games related to mathematical, strategic, or logical thinking.
2. Many of our members participated in our “TROY MathFest 2011” undergraduate conference by helping organize or help out the day of the conference, and/or by giving talks at the conference.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky? Yes

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

One new member received the “Chancellor’s Fellowship” here at Troy University to work under a faculty mentor during 2011-12 on a mathematical research project. Several members gave paper presentations at our TROY MathFest 2011 undergraduate math conference. Three members were accepted to graduate school.

Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

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Posted in 2010-2011, Chapter Reports

Vermont Alpha Saint Michael’s College

Advisor:Zsuzsanna Kadas
Advisor’s email address:zkadas@smcvt.edu
Officers: President: Mary Spuches ; Vice-President: Emily Pratt
Chapter URL: http://www.smcvt.edu/Academics/Honors-at-SMC/Honor-Societies/Pi-Mu-Epsilon.aspx
Number of New Members: 7
Number of Continuing Members: 14
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:
As usual, the annual Pi Mu Epsilon lecture was held in conjunction with the Induction Ceremony. We were very pleased to have as our speaker Prof. Frank Morgan from Williams College, who is also Vice-President of the AMS. Frank gave a very lively and engaging talk on Soap Bubbles and Mathematics. In November of 2011, former Chapter President Sarah Hamilton ’07, now a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University, gave the Colloquium talk “Oh the Things You Can Do and the Places You’ll See With a Mathematics Degree from SMC!” On Friday, March 2nd, the PME chapter organized the first annual Math FFNN (Food, Fun, Networking Night) at which we ate Pi (Pizza), played some math games like Set, Yahtzee, and Sumdoku, and some non-math games like Bananagrams and Apples to Apples, and shared some math jokes. It was a good time – lots of informal conversation and networking among students and faculty.
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
Not this year.
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
Mary Spuches ’12 will begin graduate study in the Ph.D. program in Applied Math at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Emily Pratt ’12 received the Outstanding Math Major award at graduation. Several rising Seniors are attending summer research programs and workshops: Ashley Armstrong- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Thomas Dickerson – Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Alexandra Foote – Explorations in Statistics Research, a workshop at UC Berkeley
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

South Carolina Beta Clemson University

Chapter: South Carolina Beta
Institution:Clemson University
Report Year: 2011-2012 Chapter Report
Advisor:Mark Cawood
Advisor’s email address:cawood@clemson.edu
PFC:
PFC’s email address:
Officers:
Chapter URL:
Number of New Members: No new members
Number of Continuing Members:
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

South Carolina Alpha University of South Carolina

Advisor: Maria Girardi and Rhonda Sanders

PFC: Maria Girardi and Rhonda Sanders

Officers:

President: Ryan Benite

Vice President: Richard Voepel and Jeff Bobineaux

Treasurer: Kinsey Parrish

Secretary: Alyssa Todaro

Chapter URL: South Carolina Alpha

Number of New Members Inducted: 11

Number of Continuing Members: 53

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

One of our most popular events is our Annual Integration Bee. This year marked your 10th year. It is great in that our graduate students run the Bee so that the undergraduate students can partake. It’s hard to say only one more event for there were so many. For example, here is a few activities. 1) PME students, as community service, helped stuff stockings for the Salvation Army at Christmas time. 2) PME students started a mentoring program, matching underclassmen with upperclassmen. 3) PME students (undergraduate and graduate) gave seminars to their peers. 4) PME students tutored, once a week, at a local high school.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Yes. The winner of our “Problem of the Month” contest will attend MathFest.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Too many to mention. Here are just a few (sorry if I overlooked some). Below is a cut&paste from USC’s math dept homepage (each student mentioned is a PME member). 1) Taylor Jones on winning a very prestigious University leadership and service award! He won the Wilson-Kibler Bicentennial Award which also comes with a scholarship. 2) two Math majors are among the three USC students named 2012 Goldwater Scholars! They are William “Cole” Franks and Daniel Grier, both of whom are attending the prestigious Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. 3) The USC Math Jeopardy team placed 4th out of over 30 teams at the 2012 Southeast Regional Meeting of the Math. Assn. of America. Our team of Reggie Bain, Connor Bain, Reid Harris, and Richard Voepel was supervised by grad student Virginia Johnson. Great job! Thanks to Pi Mu Epsilon/Gamecock Math Club, the Department’s donors, and especially the Residence Hall Assn. for their support of the team. 4) Congratulations to Robin Neumayer, SCHC senior mathematics major, and Reginald (Reggie) Bain, SCHC senior double physics and math major! Each received a 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a prestigious and highly competitive award reserved for exceptional students pursuing research-based graduate degrees

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Pi Marist College

Advisor: Matthew Glomski

PFC: Joe Kirtland

Officers:

President/Secretary: Kelley Gould

Vice President/Treasurer: Lauren DaLeo

Number of New Members Inducted:13

Number of Continuing Members: 11

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Dr. Robert McGrail, Bard College, delivered the 2012 induction keynote speech. He began by handing out a test to all in attendance–inductees, faculty and parents.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Lexington, Kentucky?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Patrick Cummings (’12) accepted to graduate program in mathematics at Boston University; Jennifer Kile (’12) accepted to graduate program in mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Thomas Murphy (’12) accepted to graduate program in mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University; Emily Schroder (’12) accepted to graduate program in statistics at Colorado State University Fort Collins Renee Gennarelli (’11) accepted to graduate program in biostatistics at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine Edward Ohanian (’11) co-authored March 2012 College Mathematics Journal article: “Eradicating a disease: Lessons from mathematical epidemiology.”

 

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

New York Alpha Eta Nazareth College

Advisor: Heather Ames Lewis

Chapter URL: http://www-pub.naz.edu:9000/~mathweb/pimuepsilon/

Officers: President: Kerry Gannon

Number of New Members Inducted:12

Number of Continuing Members: 1

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

At our award ceremony, the guest speaker was Jessica Burchfield, a class of 2007 Nazareth College graduate with BAs in Mathematics and Italian, and 2006 PME inductee. Jessica addressed the audience with a presentation entitled, “Math, Agatha Christie, Language, and Other Deceivingly Random Topics.”

Did any of your chapter members attend or present a paper at the 2011 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Kerry Gannon will be studying abroad in the fall, through the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Louisiana Theta Loyola University New Orleans

Advisor: Maria Calzada

Officers:

President: Leah Birch

Number of New Members Inducted:7

 

Number of Continuing Members: Unknown

 

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

This year we had a large number of invited speakers. The attendance to our talks was excellent, indicating a growing interest in the mathematical sciences. We are looking forward to our induction ceremony on May 1st, 2012.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Not this year.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Leah Birch, our student president, will attend the Harvard Applied Mathematics program.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Louisiana Beta Southern University and A & M College

Chapter: Louisiana Beta
Institution: Southern University And A&M College
Report Year: 2011-2012 Chapter Report
Advisor: Dr. Deborah L. Clark
Advisor’s email address: teachlearners@yahoo.com
PFC:
PFC’s email address:

Officers: Past-President: Adrianna Guillory
Newly elected President: John Pierre’ LaFleur
Secretary: Joseph Walker
Treasurer: Dr. D. L. Clark
PME Committee Co-Chair: Mr. Christopher Marshall
Advisor: Dr. Katrina Cunningham
Chapter URL:
Number of New Members: 2
Number of Continuing Members: 11
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:
The Department of Mathematics held its 47th La. Beta Chapter Pi Mu Epsilon Induction Ceremony on April 4, 2012. We inducted two mathematics majors, John Pierre’ LaFleur, an undergraduate student, and Phaedra Wells, a graduate student, into the chapter. The induction ceremony was well attended with mathematics professors, parents & family of the inductees, and learners in and from the graduate and the undergraduate programs in Mathematics. A highlight of the afternoon was having Dr. Carla Denise Cotwright-Williams, a prior inductee of Louisiana Beta, as our guest speaker. Dr. Katrina Cunningham, Department Chair, gave closing remarks. La. Beta Chapter also held a 2011 fall meeting promoting scholarly activity in Mathematics by providing an opportunity for learners to become acquainted with Pi Mu Epsilon and for learner Phaedra Wells, pursuing her Masters at the time, to present a preview of her thesis entitled ‘Minimal Arc Lengths and Queen Dido’. The meeting and the presentation went very well with learners from mathematics classes, professors from the community and department, friends and family of Wells attending. Learner Wells’ thesis professor, Dr. Walfredo Javier, gave remarks.
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
We do have a member, our newly elected President, John Pierre’ LaFleur, who attended MathFest this year in Madison, Wisconsin. He is looking forward to presenting next year.
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
We proudly announce that learner T’Era Deon Hartfield, a 2011 inductee, is receiving her Master of Arts Degree in Mathematics Education from Louisiana State University (LSU) this summer. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) announced this spring that Dr. Carla Denise Cotwright-Williams was chosen as their Congressional Fellow for 2012-2013. Finally, 2012 inductee, John Pierre’ LaFleur, received the Meritorious Award from the Department of Mathematics at this spring’s SUBR Honors Day Awards Program, and was also elected President of Louisiana Beta Chapter for the upcoming school year.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Indiana Zeta Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne

Advisor:Lowell Beineke (co-advisor: Doug Townsend)
Advisor’s email address:beineke@ipfw.edu
PFC: Lowell Beineke
PFC’s email address:beineke@ipfw.edu

Officers: President: Anastasia Jack
Vice President: Timothy Carson
Secretary/Treasurer: David Kimmey

Chapter URL:
Number of New Members: 5
Number of Continuing Members:
Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter mathematical activities this year:
The chapter co-sponsored PI Day activities on March 14. There were about 25 students and faculty present. Prizes (pies, of course!) were given to the winners of the two PI Sudoku contests. The chapter again sponsored student talks in the spring semester.
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?
Uncertain
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences.
Recent graduate Paul Richeson was hired as an actuary at the medical insurance company Humana in Chicago, IL. 2012 graduate Anastasia Jack was recently hired by Lincoln Life Insurance Company in Fort Wayne, IN for a position in financial processing.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
The chapter received a matching prize grant. The money received from the national organization was matched by the department and the money was split between the students giving the two best talks: Aldene Hoilett (first – $60) and Guchen Liu (second – $40).

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Illinois Nu North Central College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: David Schmitz

Officers:

President: Tyler Schroeder

Vice President: Shaun Ballard

Secretary: Bryan Taylor

Treasurer: Maria Gommel

Number of New Members Inducted: 12

Number of Continuing Members:42

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We held three Prime Time Colloquia, featuring talks given by faculty, students, and invited guests who use mathematics in their careers. Attendance at these colloquia ranged from 30 to nearly 100. Our primary social events were two “Trivia Break” competitions, each attended by around 30 students and faculty.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2012 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Maria Gommel, our chapter secretary, won a Barry Goldwater Scholarship. Tyler Schroeder, our chapter president, received an honorable mention in the Goldwater Scholarship competition. Four of our members (Maria Gommel, Sam Jaros, Jonathan Rascher, and Kelvin Guilbault) presented original mathematics research at NCUR this year. These four, and several others, presented research at North Central’s Rall Symposium for undergraduate research. Last fall, Nathan Pierson began his doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, and Michael Smallwood began his doctoral studies in mathematics at Bowling Green State University. This fall, Grace Muganda will begin medical school and the University of Illinois, and Kelvin Guilbault will begin his doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Posted in 2011-2012, Chapter Reports

Wisconsin Delta St Norbert College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Terry Jo Leiterman

President: Sarah Schultz

Vice President: Beth Colletti

Number of New Members Inducted:

8

Number of Continuing Members:

12

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Three students presented papers at the San Jose Mathfest. We conducted our 22nd annual St. Norbert College Pi Mu Epsilon Regional Undergraduate Math Conference. The featured speaker was Keith Devlin, and the conference had its largest attendance in its 22-year history. Students from 15 different colleges and universities participated.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Yes

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Mark Krines has been offered fellowships from Indiana University and the Un iversity of Iowa. Alumnus Phil Busse completed his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Kentucky

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Washington Zeta Eastern Washington University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Dr. Elena Toneva , Dr. Dale Garraway

President: Zachary Alexander:

Number of New Members Inducted:

9

Number of Continuing Members:

3

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

In November a graduate of our university gave a talk about “An Actuarial Career” about her experience in the real world. A faculty presented a talk titled “The Misadventures of the ‘Gyclo’ Tom” about stacking and shifting tasks with misterious results are explained dy deep theorems from abstract algebra. We also had a gathering to discuss voting and matemathics.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Zachary Alexander

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Zachary Alexander, Brent Knutson – two of our current students are accepted in graduate school. Cathy Brown (BA, 1973) received the Oregon Mathematics Education Hall of Fame Award, which recognizes her for her long history of service to and achievement in math education in Oregon and for her commitment to improving the quality of math education. Bonni Kealy (BA, 2004; MS, 2005) is attending WSU pursuing a PhD in mathematics. Upon acceptance she was awarded a teaching assistantship and an additional scholarship. Emil Kraft (BA, 1996) is President and CEO of EnterCalc Inc. He previously served for more than a decade as an Actuarial Analyst for Milliman of Seattle, WA. Juul Quick (BAE, 2007) served a tour at Ar Ramadi, Iraq as a Marine Corp Reservist Amber Smith (BA, 1999; MS, 2003) won the National Meritorious Abstract award from the American Professional Sleep Society (APSS) in June 2007. She is currently working on a Ph.D. in Mathematics at WSU, and in April 2008 won the WSU GPSA 2007-2008 Research Assistant Award. She is currently working on code to implement an individualization of the 95% confidence interval for performance under sleep deprivation and will be presenting a poster called “Efficient computation of 95% confidence intervals for Bayesian model predictions based on multidimensional parameter space” at the annual APSS meeting this June.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Virginia Mu Christopher Newport University

 

Advisor: Ron Persky

Number of New Members Inducted:

6

Number of Continuing Members:

0

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We forgot to have elections before the students left, but will do so this Fall. Pi Mu Epsilon with the Math Club ran a set of problem solving sessions. Four students talked about their problems at the end of the year and some problems were submitted to journals.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

No.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Virginia Epsilon Longwood University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: David Shoenthal

President: Jessica Frohock

Vice President/Secretary/Treasurer: Elizabeth Creath

Number of New Members Inducted:

3

Number of Continuing Members:

2

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1) The Pi Mu Epsilon Problem of the Month continues its popularity, and now its internationally known–we had a solution from China this year. 2) We continued tutoring before finals week. This year we required a minimum donation; the $2 cover charge didn’t seem to prevent attendance. Each session lasted 3 hours, and there were two sessions: one on the Sunday before finals and another on the Wednesday during finals week.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Zack Johnson is currently in the midst of job hunting–the outcome of which will determine whether or not he can attend.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Zack Johnson was part of an undergraduate Jeopardy team from Longwood that took first place among six competing teams at the Spring Meeting of the Maryland-DC-Virginia Section of the MAA. Also, Zack Johnson was part of a COMAP team that received Honorable Mention for its submission.

We continue to have success with the awards grant. The Pi Mu Epsilon Problem of the Month is slowly reaching more people due to my associated web site. While that site has no real effect on the prize, it’s exciting to see how the problem has grown. Our first place prize this year ($40 to local restaurant) went to Richard Hayden (Mathematics major); the second place prize ($20 to same local restaurant) went to Elizabeth Creath (Mathematics major and Pi Mu Epsilon member).

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Virginia Beta Marshall University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Shannon Miller

President: Danielle Clark

Vice President: Clyde Meador

Secretary: Michael Lake

Number of New Members Inducted:

8

Number of Continuing Members:

20

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Problem Solving Team – Some of the student members of PME here at Marshall University created a weekly meeting where they simply get together and work on open interesting problems. There have been discussions about doing problems from journals for submission next year. The students have also discusses joining in competitions now that they have experience working on problems together. Table Tennis Tournament – The student members of PME hosted a mathematical awareness ping pong tourny this spring in the student center at Marshall University. We made posters with interesting artwork and math information. Also we were able to raise a little money with a baked goods sale and give prizes to the winners.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Not this year.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

We had a few presentations at the fall meeting of the PME Ohio Section and a presentation at the spring meeting of the MAA Ohio Section. Three students graduated and one of them is going into the AirForce. Congratulations everyone!

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Vermont Alpha Saint Michael’s College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Professor Zsuzanna Kadas

President: Andrea Austin

Vice President: Jordan Scampoli

Secretary: Allison Levesque

Number of New Members Inducted:

12

Number of Continuing Members:

4

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

The Induction Ceremony was held on October 12, 2007, with a reception for parents and friends afterward. We had a very lively lecture on the topic Chaos and the Mathematics of Prediction: Harry Potter, Hurricane Katrina, and Happiness by Prof. Christopher Danforth of the University of Vermont. (This talk was also a hit at the MAA Northeast Section Meeting we hosted at St. Michael’s in May 2008 and he has since given the talk at an MAA function in Boston as well.)

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

No.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Eleven St. Michael’s students presented papers at the Hudson River Undergraduate Math Conference held on April 19, 2008 at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, including PME members Andrea Austin, Katie Berry, Nick Bruno, Akie Hashimoto, Brian Hopper, Jon Kaptcianos, Hannah LaPlante, Tom Raymond, and Jordan Scampoli. A photo and story are posted here .

Andrea Austin received the Outstanding Math Major award at graduation. Chris Swanson had a NASA- Exploration Systems Missions Directorate summer internship at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH. The April 2008 issue of Math Horizons included an article “Alumni Profiles: St. Michael’s College.” Written by Prof. George Ashline, it featured careers of several alums including PME member Patti Bodkin Martucci. Graduate Schools: Andrea Austin – Brown Public Health; Allison Levesque – University of Southern Maine (Statistics); Kate Morrow – University of Vermont (Statistics)

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Utah Alpha University of Utah

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor:Angie Gardiner

Number of New Members Inducted:

11

Number of Continuing Members:

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

For Pi Day (which was not over our spring break for the first time this year) our chapter sponsored a Pi Day quiz with 10 questions. The student with the most correct answers received a gift certificate to the campus bookstore..

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Not at the moment.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

We have several students who are graduating this spring headed off to graduate school, and several continuing students who have received scholarships.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Texas Tau Midwestern States University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor:Jeff Hood

President: Anthony Burson

Vice-President: Taryn Maxwell

Number of New Members Inducted:

32

Number of Continuing Members:

19

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We are a new chapter and in March 2008, we held our Chapter Installation and Induction ceremony. One of our students, Bo Gilbert, gave a talk entitled “Zeros of Two-Term Recursive Polynomials” at the Texas Section of the MAA. Three of our students (Bo Gilbert, Austin Howard, and Rayyan Bilwani) gave talks at the TORUS conference. They also won the student Jeopardy competition.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Acceptances to graduate school: Bo Gilbert, Texas Tech University, Mathematics Austin Howard, UT Dallas, Physics Thuy Ngo, Midwestern State University, Computer Science

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Texas Pi Southwestern University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Alison Marr

President: Leslie Schwind

Number of New Members Inducted:

7

Number of Continuing Members:

16

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We really are just trying to get our chapter going again. So, the only activities we did were 1) induction and 2) a math scavenger hunt with our MAA chapter.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

Not at the current moment.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

No.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Texas Eta Texas A & M University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Philip Yasskin

President: Hannah Saugier

Vice President: Jason Pfister

Number of New Members Inducted:

31

Number of Continuing Members:

35

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

As a demonstration of Buffon’s needle problem, we did a hotdog toss to attempt to calculate pi. Afterwards we grilled and ate the hotdogs and some twinkies. Fun was had by all. Dr. Ted Turocy gave a talk at a math club meeting about mechanism design. This was a very interesting application of some mathematical probability to economics.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Students attending graduate school: John Fulk: Georgia Institute of Technology- Math Andrew Matteson: NYU- Computational Biology and Applied Mathematics Bret Lockhart: Texas A&M University- Mathematics Lindsey Novak: The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland- International Economics Cara Montgomery: Texas A&M University- Applied Mathematics

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Texas Alpha Texas Christian University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: George Gilbert

Number of New Members Inducted:

5

Number of Continuing Members:

0

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Aside from several undergraduate talks, we have an annual Calculus Bee every April. A problem is posted on the board and all students have one to three minutes to complete the problem, depending on the problem. The contest is triple elimination. Students are given a numerical alias (Putnam style) and everyone’s (or really every number’s) stat! us is updated on the board for all students to see.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

No

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

South Carolina Alpha University of South Carolina

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Matthew Boylan

President: Tyler Ray

Vice President: Kevin Pompey

Secretary: Travis Goldie

Treasurer: Jennifer Guest

Number of New Members Inducted:

11

Number of Continuing Members:

33

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

(1) Sudoku Championship, Nov. 13, 2007. USC graduate student Ivan Haynes explained to us the connection between Sudoku and graph theory. We then learned some Sudoku strategies from USC undergraduate Forrest Spence. After this, the students tested their skills to see how good they really are by participating in the USC Sudoku Championship. Here are some of the competition categories: (i) Can you solve the most puzzles in a set amount of time? (ii) Can you solve a tough puzzle faster than everyone else? (iii) How much progress can you make on an insane puzzle? Prizes were given to the overall winners. Door prizes and snacks were distributed throughout the meeting. About 30 students participated/competed. ———————————————————– (2) Annual USC Integration Bee: Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The USC Integration Bee was begun by Carrie Finch (a former graduate student at USC and current tenure-track assistant professor at Washington and Lee Univ.) on April 8, 2003. Since then, PME/GMC hosts the USC Integration Bee annually. It is similar to a spelling bee, but one integrates insteads of spells. In teams, students try to work through each integral before the music ends. Snacks, drinks, and prizes are all provided. To quote a student: “This event is more fun than seems feasible, really”. The USC Math Department and the South Carolina Honors College generously supported this event. The integrals were provided by graduate student Daniel Savu. Daniel and Ben Ingram, another graduated student moderated/officiated the competition. More than 50 students attended.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Not as of right now.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Here are some of the awards/scholarships won by South Carolina PME members: * Tyler Ray (Outstanding Senior in Engineering and National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellow and Who’s Who) * Andrew Cron (Rising Senior Award in Statistics) * Joshua Hendrickson (Nina and Frank Avignone Fellowship in Physics) * Kevin Ludwick (Nina and Frank Avignone Fellowship in Physics and Who’s Who) * Joey Montoya (Goldwater Scholar) * Bill Kay (Goldwater Honorable Mention, Markham Scholarship) * Timothy (Hudson) Harper (Polston Family Scholarship) * Joshua Hendrickson (Yang Award) * James Manning (Polston Family Scholarship) * Kelvin Pompey (CAS Rising Senior Scholarship) * Holly Watson (Pi Mu Epsilon Award)

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Rhode Island Gamma Providence College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Frank Ford

President: Jackie Anderson

Number of New Members Inducted:

22

Number of Continuing Members:

20 (est.)

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Induction with a graduate now teaching at West Point as our speaker. Alumni returning to speak to students.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Jackie Anderson was accepted in the pure math department at Brown University. Jason Price received his Ph.D from the University of Vermont. Will Wylie did a post-doc at UCLA and at MRI. Janet Bronstein finished her Ph.D at SUNY-Stony Brook and has a three year appointment at West Point.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Rhode Island Alpha University of Rhode Island

 
 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Professor James Baglama

Number of New Members Inducted:

10

Number of Continuing Members:

5

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

1) We had an induction ceremony in April along with a very successful Calc Bowl. Learn more this event here and visit here to learn about news coverage of this event.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Pennsylvania Iota Villanova University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Timothy Freeman

Number of New Members Inducted:

9

Number of Continuing Members:

10

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our annual induction, held this year on April 25, featured a wonderful talk by Dr. Helen Grundman, of Bryn Mawr College, on Niven numbers and n-Niven numbers.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin?

No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences. :

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Oregon Epsilon Linfield College

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Martha Van Cleave

President: Celia Speer

Vice President: Meghan Flink (fall) Tyler Bryson (spring)

Treasurer: Cassie Kanable

Secretary: Katy Swanson

Number of New Members Inducted:

3

Number of Continuing Members:

29

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

We had a pie eating contest in celebration of Pi Day. Students and professors raced to complete their pies. The first two people to finish their pie, flip the tin and read off the digits of pi that were written on the bottom won gift cards. We also hosted a Math Department bbq to honor graduating students and to thank professors.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Portland, Oregon?

Yes, many plan to attend, and a few have expressed interest in speaking.

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

We have five students continuing their education in grad school and one working in Portland.

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship Grant, please briefly describe what took place during the councilor’s visit.

Angela Spalsbury came to visit in March. While she was here, she met with officers individually and the entire chapter for dinner. She provided a lot of great ideas for events that we could do. She also gave a talk regarding math modeling of voting systems.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports

Oregon Delta Western Oregon University

 

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Michael Ward

President: Wesley Parker

Secretary: Kristal Temple

Number of New Members Inducted:

3

Number of Continuing Members:

1

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

Our most notable activities of the year were held in conjunction with our university’s annual daylong campuswide Academic Showcase. All new PME inductees gave talks as part of the Showcase. Our induction ceremony was also part of the Showcase. The speaker was outgoing chapter advisor, Maria Fung, who spoke on “Hamilton’s Quaternions: A Brief Introduction.”

Did any of your chapter members present papers at the 2008 PME national meeting at MathFest in Madison, WI?

Kristal Temple attended and spoke on “What I did with my summer,” a report on her time at The Carleton College Summer Mathematics Program for Women .

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

Courtney Stowell ’08, is earning a Master of Arts in Teaching in preparation for becoming a secondary mathematics teacher. Jen Carmichael ’06 and Keith Schloeman ’07 co-authored a paper with chapter advisor Michael Ward titled “Cayley-Sudoku Tables,” which has been submitted for publication. Jen and Keith spoke on various parts of the paper at Math Fest and at Pacific Northwest Regional MAA meetings during the past two years.

Posted in 2007-2008, Chapter Reports