Mark Naigles has been awarded the Institute of Teaching and Learning 2010-2011 Outstanding Adjunct Award at its Instructional Excellence Recognition Dinner.

Sixteen undergraduate math majors were elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honor society. The students are Antoni Brzoska, Levi Benjamin DeValve, Christopher D. Hickey, Cheryl Ann Holowienko, Lindsay Rose King, Kathleen Li, Dominick James Major, Tracy Anne Margiott, Christine Elizabeth McMeekin, Ashley Nicole Ruegg, Joshua Ryan Strupcewski, Acacia Lauren Wagner, Michelle Nevine Wahab, Cheri Lynn Wiggin, Besmir Xhurxhi and Yi Zhang.

Miki Neumann has been selected as the first Stuart and Joan Sidney Professor of Mathematics. The professorship was established with a gift from the four children of Stuart, a recently retired professor in the Mathematics Department, and Joan, a poet, writer-in-residence and special research associate at UConn’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.

The Society of Actuaries, the top professional organization of life actuaries in the US, has recognized the department’s Actuarial Science Program as a Center of Actuarial Excellence. The recognition is initially for 5 years, ending on December 31, 2014.

The recognition makes the department eligible to compete for substantial education and research grants to enhance the program, research in actuarial science and the profession. It also means the department will be promoted on the SOA’s web site.

This recognition will make the department’s already strong actuarial science program even stronger and allow it to become a magnet for attracting even better students for both its undergraduate and graduate components.

Department Head Miki Neumann has expressed his appreciation to the present actuarial science program faculty, Michael Braunstein, Jim Bridgeman, Jim Trimble, Jay Vadiveloo, and Emil Valdez, for bringing bringing the department this honor, as well as former, now retired faculty Louis Lombardi, Richard London, Walt Lowerie and Chuck Vinsonhaler whose hard work for many years brought the department to this point.

Neumann has also thanked Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum and Frank Gifford, Director of Development at CLAS, for their strong support of the program and their help during the visitation of the CAE Evaluation Committee, along with the faculty and graduate and undergraduate students who participated in the visitation and helped demonstrate the vibrancy of the program.

The Mathematics Department’s Annual Awards Day was held Thursday, April 16. Opening remarks were made by Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum and the invited address was given by Jennifer Beineke, Western New England College, “Great Moments of the Riemann Zeta-Function.”
Click Here for the schedule and a list of awardees.

Oscar Levin has won the Institute of Teaching and Learning (ITL) Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for 2009 in recognition of his deep commitment and wide range activities in the service of the Mathematics Department’s teaching mission.
The ITL Outstanding TA Award, established in 1999, is the highest teaching award conferred by the university on a graduate student. Oscar Levin is the third mathematics TA to receive this honor. The previous winners from our department were Regina Speicher in 2004, and Jason Molitierno in 2000.

Professor David Gross will be receiving the UConn Early College Experience Program’s “Faculty Coordinator Award for Excellence in Curriculum & Adjunct Faculty Development.”

Eleven undergraduate math majors were elected on April 7, 2009 to membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honor society. The students are Yi-Jun Chen, Jason Michael Crowley, Ryan James Esplin, Eric John Forfa, Nicole Lynn Gottier, Caroline Truc Lam, Thomas D. Murawski, Russell G. Nash, Andrew Nelson Phillips, Joseph Alexander Pomianowski, and Linda Tran. They will be initiated into the Society on Sunday, May 3.

Christine McMeekin is receiving an Oaklawn Scholarship for 2009-2010 from the Honors College. This award is based on academic excellence and leadership.