We regret to announce that our colleague Gaston Hernandez, Associate Professor of Mathematics, passed away on June 13, 2015 at Windham Community Memorial Hospital, after a long and courageous battle with brain cancer. He was the beloved husband of Eliana D. Rojas, father of Alejandra and Hector Hernandez, father-in-law of Jennifer Munz and Jeremy Olen, and grandfather of Isabel Olen. Born in Curicó, Chile, in 1951, he was the son of the late Paula Diaz Marquez and late Erasmo Hernandez Diaz, and beloved brother of Ramón, Elba, Erasmo, Gloria, Silvia, and the late Jorge Hernández. In 1979, following the Chile coup d’état, Gastón fled to the U.S, where he completed his PhD in mathematics at the University of Minnesota.

He was an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, and before that, held visiting positions at the Universidad Católica and Universidad Federico Santa Maria in Chile, Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Iowa. He was an active advocate of brain tumor research and awareness, nationally and internationally, and touched the lives of many through his great optimism and jovial spirit. A true Renaissance man, he graciously shared his vast knowledge of the sciences, literature, history, and the arts. He greatly enjoyed poetry, unraveling a Rubik’s cube in seconds, and challenging audiences with contentious sociopolitical statements, particularly if accompanied with a good glass of Chilean wine. He also leaves behind a large family in Chile and in France, and many friends around the world, all who loved him profoundly.

Services will be held on June 27, 2015 at 11:00am at the Storrs Congregational Church in Storrs, CT. In lieu of flowers, please honor Gaston’s memory by making donations to the American Brain Tumor Association.

The department’s annual awards ceremony, recognizing the outstanding achievements of our undergraduate and graduate students, took place on April 28 in IMS 20. The event was preceded by a reception with tea and light refreshments in the math department lounge.

This year’s speaker was Leo Goldmakher of Williams College, who spoke on “Structure and randomness in the primes”.

For more information, see the full program of events, as well as the photo album on our Facebook page.

The department mourns the loss of our colleague and head, Evarist Giné-Masdéu, who passed away on Friday, March 13. Evarist received his PhD from MIT in 1973 and held positions at a number of other universities before joining UConn in 1990. He was 70 years old.

The following tribute comes from Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Evarist was a distinguished mathematician who worked on mathematical statistics and probability in infinite dimensions. He authored 2 books and over 100 articles, with many appearing in the very top journals in his field such as the Annals of Statistics. His third book, Mathematical Foundations of Infinite-Dimensional Statistical Models, written with a former UConn post-doc of his, Richard Nickl of Cambridge, will appear soon with Cambridge University Press. Among many signs of professional recognition, he was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a recipient of UConn’s Alumni Excellence in Research Award.

In June of 2014, friends and colleagues of Evarist organized a 3 day conference in honor of his 70th birthday at the Center for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University in England. The conference drew a worldwide audience who celebrated “the many areas that Evarist transformed and worked on in his distinguished career.”

Evarist was a quiet man with a dry sense of humor. When he assumed the Headship of Mathematics in 2012 after Miki Neumann’s death, he told me that he had never had the desire or ambition to take on the job, but that he felt a sense of responsibility to give back to the department. I will miss his kindness and his dedication.

I know that the department and the entire college joins me in sending Evarist’s wife Rosalind Eastaway, his daughters Roser and Nuria, and his entire family our deepest condolences.

Update (May 29, 2015). For a detailed obituary, see p. 8 of the June/July 2015 issue of the IMS Bulletin.

The annual Calculus Competition will be held 7:00-8:30 p.m. Tuesday 24 March 2015 in room 109 of the Mathematical Sciences Building. Cash and book prizes will be awarded in three categories:

• Beginner – roughly, through first-year calculus;
• Intermediate – roughly, through multivariable calculus, beginning differential equations, and beginning linear algebra;
• Over-all.

All UConn undergraduates, and pre-college students taking math courses at UConn are eligible to participate.

Participants should register by Monday 23 March, either on the sheet outside the Reception Office (MSB 102) or by email to Prof. S. J. Sidney. If registering by email, please give your name, phone number, email address, and the numbers of UConn math courses you are taking now, with instructor names for multi-section courses.

Participants should arrive at the competition by 6:50 the evening of the exam.

Our department will be hosting an REU program this summer, with projects on analysis on fractals, math education, representation theory, and stochastic control. For more information, visit the main page for our program, or go directly to the
application submission page. The due date for applications is March 1st.