On Saturday, February 9, the Department of Mathematics will host the Eastern Chapter of the MathCounts competition. For many years this competition took place at the Coast Guard Academy, but the recent government shutdown made it impossible. UConn came to rescue and hope to host up to 230 mathletes this week. One of the teams is from the Mansfield Middle School whose MathCounts club has been helped by Professors Gan, Gordina and Sidney for numerous years. The event will be organized with participation of three student chapters (AMS, AWM and SIAM).

Three undergraduate students presented posters on their math research during the 2018 Spring Frontiers Exhibition sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR).

Sailesh Simhadri presented his SURF-funded project on random processes associated to linear recurrences.

 

Raji Majumdar and Anthony Sisti presented their research from last summer on applications of Central Limit Theorems to the Black-Scholes formula in math finance and to products of random matrices. They were supervised by Masha Gordina, and mentored by graduate students Phanuel Mariano and Hugo Panzo. A grant from the OUR allowed them to travel to and present at the 2018 JMM.

Phanuel Mariano, a graduate student in mathematics, received the 2018 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). This is a university-wide award, including the regional campuses, that honors Teaching Assistants who have gone well beyond the call of duty to affect the student learning and experience for undergraduate students at UConn.

The Outstanding Graduate Teaching Awards were established in 1999 to recognize teaching assistants who demonstrate excellence in the classroom or laboratory. Nominees for this award must demonstrate effective instructional skills, possess excellent interpersonal skills, provide practical feedback, and contribute to the development of the instructional program.

Above, Phanuel Mariano, center, is pictured at the CETL awards reception, with math department head Ambar Sengupta, left, and Phanuel’s advisor and math department associate head, Maria Gordina, right.

Congratulations, Phanuel!

Professors Lan-Hsuan Huang and Damin Wu have been appointed as members of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton during the academic year 2018-2019. The membership will provide support for Professors Huang and Wu to spend a sabbatical year participating in the IAS special year program on Variational Methods in Geometry.

Professor Huang’s tenure at IAS will be supported by a von Neumann Fellowship. The highly selective von Neumann fellowship program supports early-career mathematicians as members at IAS for a year.

In addition, Professor Huang is one of the 2018 Simons Fellows in Mathematics. The Simons fellowship will provide additional sabbatical funding to support Professor Huang’s research proposal “Geometry of General Relativity,” allowing her to extend her sabbatical leave to the full academic year 2018-2019.