Institution: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Reporting Year: 2016-2017
Advisor: Daniel Toundykov
Advisor's Email Address: dtoundykov@unl.edu
Has There Been a Change in Chapter Advisor During the Past Year?:
Permanent Faculty Correspondent:
Permanent Faculty Correspondent's Email Address:
Officers: President: Cashous Bortner Primary Programmer/Vice President: Jared Gaston Treasurer: John Chrostek Secretary: Michael Pieper
Chapter Website: http://http://www.math.unl.edu/math-club/pme
Number of New Members: 12
Number of Continuing Members: 2
Activities: 1. The 10th Annual Pi Mu Epsilon Lecture was given on Friday, October 7, 2016 by Dr. David Saltman, Director of the Center for Communications Research. The presentation was titled "Breaking Enigma the First Time" This lecture attracted over 130 attendees and even featured an actual WWII era Enigma machine on display that the audience got to interact with. http://www.math.unl.edu/math-club/pme/lecture A picture of the new inductees with David Saltman accompanies this report. 2. The 4th Bares Lecture: "Career Perspectives in Mathematics" featured a UNL mathematics alumna and Pi Mu Epsilon member from 2010, Lisa Amen. Lisa shared her education and career experience with our students and introduced them to career opportunities for mathematicians in healthcare industry. http://www.math.unl.edu/math-club/career
Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present at the PME National Meeting this year? Simon Deng and Rebecca Soresen plan to attend and give talks at the PME National Meeting this year.
Do you have any news about current students or recent graduations? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences, etc.
Cashous Bortner will pursue a PhD in mathematics at the North Carolina State University.
If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
Our Chapter, in collaboration with other department faculty, has been organizing a regular Math Challenge event open to all undergraduates. This program has received $60 in PME support for prize money in 2017 (each prize is a $5 gift card to a coffee shop). Every problem is advertised for 2 weeks: on the math club website, via emails to our math majors, and with hard copy stacks posted in the mathematics department. Afterwards the best correct solution (almost always by one of the students) is posted. Since Aug 2016, a total of 14 problems have been announced. There have been 25 formal submissions with 13 prizes given out so far. The Math Challenge will continue in the fall of this year.