The Mathematics Department’s Annual Awards Day took place Thursday, April 26 at 3:30 PM in IMS 20. Opening remarks were made by Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum and the invited address after the ceremony was given by Michael Zieve (Univ. Michigan) on “Square Values of Polynomials.”

Emil Valdez has been awarded (along with his co-author Jed Frees of Wisconsin) the 2011 David Garrick Halmstad prize by the Actuarial Foundation for the best actuarial research published in 2010.

Emil Valdez and his co-authors Andreas Tsanakas, Jan Dhaene and Steven Vanduffel have been awarded the the Lloyd’s of London Science of Risk Prize in the category for Insurance Operations and Markets on November 24, 2011.

Charles Vinsonhaler, along with co-authors John Clark and Kevin O’Meara, had their book “Advanced Topics in Linear Algebra: Weaving Matrix Problems through the Weyr Form” published by Oxford University Press.

Fabiana Cardetti, in collaboration with Mary Truxaw and Megan Staples (Neag School of Education), has been awarded $381,130 by the State Department of Higher Education under the 2011 Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program. This grant will support the year-long project entitled: “UConn MLA: Mathematics Leadership Academy” to provide professional development in mathematics content and pedagogy for middle and high school mathematics teachers from across four public school districts in Connecticut. The program includes 12 credits of graduate coursework for participating teachers, as well as extensive school-based support for collaborative leadership activities related to mathematics education.

Math major William David (Dave) Lindsay, Jr. was recently awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for the 2011-12 academic year. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award for mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering majors.
Lindsay is pursuing a dual major in Mathematics as well as Physiology and Neurobiology. He has been developing algebraic models, in an undergraduate thesis supervised by math Professor Milena Hering, to support and develop the conceptual setting for his laboratory work on cells.

We congratulate Dave on his accomplishment and look forward to sharing his future successes.

Fabiana Cardetti’s work with the Math Leadership Academy is reported in the Hartford Courant.

Jay Vadiveloo and Lu Ma were interviewed by Charles Wolfe on WPKN 89.5 FM about the risk management for small businesses initiative undertaken by the Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research.

This year three UConn mathematics students, William David Lindsay, Jr., Aaron A. Nelson, and William C. Snider II, were chosen as recipients of the Bernard Sippin ’52 Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to academically outstanding undergraduate students enrolled full time as a mathematics major (or intent to declare a major in mathematics) at the University of Connecticut. The selection committee chose those three recipients from a very impressive pool of applicants. Congratulations to all three winners for this well deserved honor.