News Archive

Congratulations to Ken Kennedy who passed an Oral Examination for his Masters degree this afternoon of Friday October 23; this Examination completed the requirements for the degree.

The Research Office is now accepting applications for the Faculty Release Time (FRT) program for release for Spring term 2010. Applications are due in the Research Office by Nov. 16. The complete program description, application materials and proposal criteria can be accessed at the Research Office website: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/frt.htm If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Delmore at 541-737-8390 or debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu

The Research Office is now accepting proposals for the General Research Fund (GRF) Fall 2009 solicitation. Proposals are due in the Research Office by Oct. 16. Please note: Proposals must be submitted electronically. Complete program description, application materials and proposal criteria may be accessed at: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/grf.htm If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Delmore at 541-737-8390 or debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu

Dean Sherm Bloomer will hold two forums open to all College of Science faculty and staff. The time will be used to discuss the budget as well as campus and college (COS) changes. Please plan to attend one of the following: Thursday, Oct. 15, 2:00-3:30 in Kidder 364 and Monday, Oct. 26, 10:00-11:30 in Owen 103

PEBB Open Enrollment for the Plan Year 2010 is mandatory for selecting a 2010 medical plan OR to continue to Opt-Out of the medical plans. If you do not re-enroll or opt-out of a 2010 medical plan during October, PEBB will move you to the Employee-ONLY tier of the Statewide Plan and your dependents will lose medical coverage effective Jan. 1, 2010. Open Enrollment is also the time of year you can make changes to your benefit elections. For more information regarding Open Enrollment, please visit the OHR website at: http://oregonstate.edu/admin/hr/2010openenrollment.html

The annual meeting of the Teachers of Teachers of Mathematics (TOTOM) of Oregon was held at OSU on September 11 and 12. This annual conference brought together 36 teacher educators from around the state of Oregon. The conference focuses on teacher education through the presentation and discussion of teacher education courses and curriculum, research on teacher education, research on K-12 students, and current policies of K-12 education set by the Oregon Department of Education. The conference was organized by Scott Peterson, Marie Franzosa, and Diane Hart.

Welcome back to another year. Please note the announcement about the upcoming department picnic. We will be asking for volunteers to help out with this. Also, please update your office hours by the end of the first week of the term. The web committee has done an excellent job of updating the department web site. It should be easier for faculty members and graduate students to enter information on the site. For reference purposes, the newsletter can be accessed at
www.math.oregonstate.edu/newsletter

Bring yourself, your family or significant other and join us for our annual Fall picnic Saturday, October 3, from 1-5 p.m. at Avery Park's Lions Shelter. The department will provide hamburgers, veggie burgers and a variety of drinks. A signup sheet will be posted in the faculty room the first week of classes.

Connie Caranto has joined the Mathematics Department office.

Keith Devlin of Stanford University, also known as the
Weekend Edition Math Guy on National Public Radio,
has agreed to give the Lonseth lecture on May 11, 2010.

The first annual SIAM Student Chapter poster session was held last week at the Lonseth lecture and the results are in.
Winner for the best overall poster went to Carrie Manore. There was a tie for second place which was shared by Ken Kennedy and Thilanka Appuhamillage. The award for the best undergraduate poster goes to Ryan Frederick, Robin Leung, Jonathan Wong.
First place will receive $50 each person in second place will receive $25 and the undergraduate winner will receive $25.
Thanks to everyone who participated and helped organize this poster session. A special thanks to the judges David Finch, Mary Flahive, John Lee, Enrique Thomann, and Tevian Dray. Also, the members of OSU-SIAM would like to thank everyone who contributed to sponsor the awards for this event by purchasing one of the SIAM t-shirts.

The first NUMS conference was held Saturday, May 9 at OSU. There were 33 attendees representing EOU, OSU, Pacific, Willamette and WOU, including 17 speakers filling two parallel sessions. Titles and abstracts are listed at the NUMS website.

Presentation awards were made to the following:
• Best Long Talk: Kerensa Gimre, Pacific
• Best Short Talk: Corey Goll, WOU
• AWM Prize: Brittany Cuff, Pacific
• SIAM Prize: Karsten Gimre, Pacific
• PME Prize: Alex Brummer, OSU

Additionally, prizes were given to the winners of the Math Jeopardy contest during lunch.

Sponsors of the conference included: OSU Student Foundation ($400), Pi Mu Epsilon ($100), Pearson Publishing ($50), Fred Meyer ($50), Papa's Pizza Parlor ($50),

The organizing committee consisted of: Nathan Gibson, Steven Brinkley, Max Brugger, Alex Brummer, Grant Bushnell, Michael Donatz, Aubrey Leung, Julie Linman, Zanette Numazu, and Nicholas Stevenson.

"The proposal entitled Undergraduate Mathematics Reading Room by Vrushali Bokil and Nathan Gibson (representing Math Club, PME and AWM) was awarded in the amount of $4,250. The room will serve club meetings as well as house a small library of undergraduate mathematics journals and reference texts. Donations of materials can be given to Nathan Gibson."

"Congratulations to the OSU team consisting of:

Ryan T Frederick
Jonathan E Wong
Aubrey (Robin) Leung

which was awarded Meritorious Winner in the COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling, which places them in the top 19% internationally.

Also participating this year were:

Steven J Brinkley
Rosie W Leung
Monica T Morales

See the COMAP website for more information on the contest."

"We had nine students participating in the Putnam this year: Steven Brinkley, Evan Coleman, Michael Donatz, Ben Goska, Aubrey (Robin) Leung, Margaret-Rose (Rosie) Leung, Travis Moore, Karen (Barrese) Smith, and Nicholas Stevenson.

This year we had three students tie for our top scorer with 10 points each:
Karen (Barrese) Smith, Margaret-Rose (Rosie) Leung, and Ben Goska

Note that, in particular, Rosie is a freshman this year. Their scores correspond roughly to the top 38% nationally. Congratulations!

See the Putnam website for more information on the contest. "

"Congratulations to Tom Dick for winning the 2009 Distinguished Teacher Award for the Mathematical Association of America's Pacific Northwest Section.
This section includes Alaska, Western Canada, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and parts of Idaho."

We have received notification from NSF that our REU program has been funded for four more years.

Malgorzata Peszynska has been confirmed as Fulbright Scholar Fellowship recipient in Research Category, for academic year 2009-2010, to work on a project "Coupling of discrete and continuum models of metastable configurations" at Interdisciplinary Centre for Modeling (ICM), University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
The Fulbright Program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The article "Circles in a One-Way Street Taxicab Model", which appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, won one of the Richard V. Andree Awards for the best undergraduate-written articles to appear in the 2008 issues of the Journal. It is an honor to have a paper appear in the Journal, and an exceptional honor to earn this special distinction. The award comes with a cash prize of $300 and an additional mention in the Spring 2009 Journal. This article was a product of a WIC paper under Tevian Dray for which she won the WIC Culture of Writing Award in Mathematics in 2006.

Pongdate Montagantirud and Noppadon Wichitsongkram have each received a Supplemental Laurels Scholarship for Winter 2009 from the Graduate School at OSU. Congratulations !