This page will be regularly updated with important events happening at the math department. Please e-mail news items to web-news@math.psu.edu.

May 2008 visitors.
We welcome these visitors to the Department of Mathematics. Dr. Franco Rampazzo from Universita de Padova is visiting 5/8/08-5/22/08. His office is 234 McAllister Building. His host is Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan. Dr. Oliver Dubois from Exxon Mobil Upstream Research Company is visiting 5/15/08-5/31/08. His office is 232 McAllister Building. His host is Associate Professor Ludmil Zikatanov. Dr. Debora Amadori from University of L'Aquila is visiting 5/31/08-6/8/08. Her office is 234 McAllister Building. Her host is Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan. Dr. Rinaldo Colombo from Unversita degli Studi de Brescia is visiting 5/31/08-6/8/08. His office is 232 McAllister Building. His host is Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan. Dr. Graziano Guerra from Unversite of Milano-Bicocca is visiting 5/31/08-6/8/08. His office is 232 McAllister Building. His host is Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan.
05 / 12 / 2008

Staff Appreciation Tea.
In honor of Professionals Day and our wonderful staff, the Department of Mathematics Climate and Diversity Committee has organized a special Staff Appreciation Tea. It will be held 3:15-3:45, Wednesday April 23, in 114 McAllister Building.
04 / 23 / 2008

Bressan to direct graduate program, with assistance of Belmonte and W. Li.
Beginning July 1 Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan will direct our Mathematics graduate program. Supporting him will be Professor Winnie Li who will be in charge of graduate student mentoring, and Associate Professor Andrew Belmonte who will be in charge of recruitment and admissions.
04 / 22 / 2008

Luncheon and seminar on Learning Outcomes Assessment.
On Tuesday April 29 at 12:30 pm the Department of Mathematics will hold its Teaching Seminar for this semester. There will be a lunch beforehand from 12:00 noon in 114 McAllister. Professor Tanya Furman will speak on the subject of "Learning Outcomes Assessment: what is it and why should I care?"
04 / 22 / 2008

William Perry to give lecture on Energy and Security.
Dr. William Perry, a former PhD student in our Department of Mathematics who was Secretary of Defense during 1994-1997, will give a lecture in the HUB Auditorium on Monday, April 28, at 4 PM. His title is "Energy and Security: Grand Engineering Challenges." The talk is preceded by a reception at 3:30 PM.
04 / 22 / 2008

Raymond completes 25 years of service.
Mary Anne Raymond, administative assistent to the head of the Department of Mathematics, recently completed 25 years of service to the University. Congratulations, Mary Anne!
04 / 16 / 2008

Graduate Student Awards.
Among the award winners to be honored at this year's departmental award ceremony on April 15 are: Juan Reyes and Vivek Sirkrishnan: Spring 2008 Departmental Graduate Assistant Teaching Awards. The value of each award is $250. Heiko Todt: Charles H. Hoover Memorial Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. John Ethier and Hengguang Li: ZZRQ Award for doctoral candidates who have contributed to a sense of community within the Department of Mathematics.
04 / 15 / 2008

Awards ceremony April 15 at 6:00 PM.
The annual Department of Mathematics award ceremony will be held on Tuesday April 15, 6-7:30 PM. Scholarships for outstanding undergraduates and teaching awards for graduate TAs and faculty members will be presented.
03 / 31 / 2008

Brown and W. Li receive teaching awards.
Two departmental teaching awards have been made: The Mary Lister McCammon Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics has been made to Professor Winnie Li. The Don Rung Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching has been made to Assistant Professor Nate Brown.
03 / 31 / 2008

Visitors.
The Department of Mathematics welcomes the following visitors for April: Professor Sergei Ivanov from Steklov Institute of Mathematics, Russia, is visiting 4/5/08-5/1/08. His office is 234 McAllister. His host is Professor Dmitri Burago. Professor Yuri Kifer from Hebrew University, Israel, is visiting 4/4/08-5/2/08. His office is 316 McAllister. His host is Distinguished Professor Yakov Pesin. Professor Blanca Ayuso from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain, is visiting 4/1/08-5/31/08. Her office is 209 McAllister. Her host is Associate Professor Ludmil Zikatanov. Professor Stefano Luzzatto from Imperial College, United Kingdom, is visiting 4/15/08-4/22/08. His office is 308 McAllister. His host is Distinguished Professor Yakov Pesin.
03 / 31 / 2008

Rosemary Manning receives award.
Our long-time staff member Rosemary Manning has received the Achieving Women Award from the Penn State Commission for Women. Congratulations, Rosemary!
03 / 17 / 2008

Forsha and Hager promoted.
Two of our fixed-term instructors, Darla Forsha and James Hager, were recently promoted to the position of Senior Instructor/Lecturer. Congratulations, Darla and James!
03 / 17 / 2008

Sellers elected to MAA Board of Governors.
Our Director of Undergraduate Mathematics James Sellers was recently elected to the Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America.
03 / 17 / 2008

Liu to serve as IMA Associate Director.
Our Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Chun Liu, will spend the next two academic years as an Associate Director of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications in Minnesota. . During 2009-10 the IMA will run a special year on complex fluids, which is one of Professor Liu's areas of expertise. Penn State and the mathematical community will benefit greatly from Professor Liu's service in this nationally prominent position.
03 / 17 / 2008

Brannick hired as tenure-track Assistant Professor.
S. Chowla Research Assistant Professor James Brannick has just accepted a position as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in our department. James works in computational and applied mathematics. His name is especially associated with computational methods to solve the equations of quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
03 / 03 / 2008

New Chowla Assistant Professor.
Yi-Jun Yao from Vanderbilt University has accepted our offer of an S. Chowla Research Assistant Professorship. He works in noncommutative geometry, with connections to combinatorics and number theory.
03 / 03 / 2008

Dunne accepts position as Computer Systems Administrator.
Mike Dunne has accepted the position of Computer Systems Administrator in our department.
03 / 03 / 2008

Visitors.
The Department of Mathematics welcomes the following visitors: Dr. Bing-Long Chen from Sun Yat-Sen University (Zhongshan University) is visiting 3/1/08-3/31/08. His office is 234 McAllister. His host is Professor Dmitri Burago. Ms. Dalia Terhesu from University of New South Wales is visiting 3/2/08-3/8/08. Her office is 308 McAllister. Her host is Associate Professor Omri Sarig. Prof. Gilles Halbout from Universite Montpellier 2 is visiting 3/30/08-4/26/08. His office is 209 McAllister. His host is Assistant Professor Aissa Wade. Dr. Volodymyr Rybalko from B. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering is visiting 3/15/08-5/15/08. His office is 232 McAllister. His hosts are Professor Leonid Berlyand and Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan. Prof. Federico Rodriguez Hertz from IMERL is visiting 3/18/08-3/24/08. His office is 419A McAllister. His host is Shibley Professor Anatole Katok. Dr. Carlotta Donadello from SISSA is visiting 3/19/08-6/15/08. Her office is 234 McAllister. Her host is Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan. Dr. Mahesh Bandi from Los Alamos National Laboratory is visiting 3/31/08-4/12/08. His office is 209 McAllister. His host is Associate Professor Andrew Belmonte.
03 / 03 / 2008

Eisentraeger receives grant from the Templeton Foundation.
Assistant Professor Kirsten Eisentraeger has received a research grant from the Templeton Foundation. Her project title is "Extensions of Hilbert's Tenth Problem" and this is part of the foundation's initiative "Exploring the Infinite".
02 / 28 / 2008

Eisentraeger wins Sloan Fellowship.
Assistant Professor Kirsten Eisentraeger has been awarded a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. These fellowships are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young researchers in science and technology. Among recent Sloan Fellows in our department are Associate Professor Omri Sarig (2006) and Assistant Professors Xiantao Li (2007) and Ae Ja Yee (2004).
02 / 26 / 2008

Graduate Open House and Alumni Conference.
On March 29-30 the Department of Mathematics will hold a Graduate Open House and Alumni Conference. The open house is for prospective graduate students to visit our department before they make their final decisions as to where to attend graduate school. The Alumni Conference will showcase the achievements of recent graduates of our Ph.D. program. Invited speakers are Dr. Clifford Reiter (1989, advisor Professor Winnie Li), Professor, Lafayette College; Dr. Danijela Damjanovic (2004, advisor Shibley Professor Anatole Katok), Benjamin Pierce Instructor, Harvard University and Dr. Maria Emelianenko (2005, advisor Willaman Professor Qiang Du), Assistant Professor, George Mason University. Further details can be obtained from Becky Halpenny.
02 / 26 / 2008

WIM Awards for Undergraduate Research.
Women in Mathematics (WIM) is proud to announce this year's recipients of the WIM Awards for Undergraduate Research. Paige Elizabeth Pfeffer, junior, is working with Associate Professor Jenny Li on "Optimization problems arising from economics and finance". Amber L. Reardon, junior, will begin working with Assistant Professor Alexei Novikov this summer on "Front propagation in reaction-diffusion equations".
02 / 26 / 2008

Current NSF-DMS Research Grants.
Currently 41 Penn State faculty members are Principal Investigators in research projects funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematical Sciences. They are: Andrews, Barlow, Baum, Berlyand, Bressan, Brown, Du, Fricks, Haran, Henderson, Higson, Jenssen, A. Katok, Levi, B. Li, W. Li, X. Li, Lindsay, C. Liu, Mazzucato, Nabutovsky, Nistor, Novikov, Ocneanu, Pesin, Previte, Richards, Roe, Rotman, Sarig, Simpson, Tabachnikov, Viswanath, Wade, C. Wu, Wysocki, J. Xu, P. Xu, Yee, Y. Zheng, Zikatanov.
02 / 05 / 2008

Visitors
The Department of Mathematics welcomes the following visitors: Professor Samuel Senti from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is visiting 2/16/08-3/20/08. His office is 308 McAllister. His host is Associate Professor Omri Sarig. Dr. Hao Wu from Fudan University is visiting 2/1/08-5/1/08. His office is 332 McAllister. His host is Professor Chun Liu. Dr. Eveyth Deligero from University of Southeastern Philippines is visiting 2/16/08-5/15/08. Her office is 308 McAllister. Her host is Professor Svetlana Katok. Feliks Przytycki from Polish Academy of Sciences is visiting 2/17/08-3/5/08. His office is 316 McAllister. His host is Shibley Professor Anatole Katok.
02 / 04 / 2008

Bressan wins Bocher Prize.
On January 7 the American Mathematical Society awarded Eberly Professor Alberto Bressan the Maxime Bôcher Memorial Prize for 2008. This $5000 prize is being shared by Charles Fefferman and Carlos Kenig. Awarded every three years, the Bôcher Prize is one of the highest distinctions in the field of analysis.
01 / 15 / 2008

Visitors.
The Department of Mathematics welcomes the following visitors: Professor Mahesh Nerurkar from Rutgers University is visiting for the spring semester. His host is Shibley Professor Anatole Katok. Dean Jiping Zhang from Peking University is visiting 1/9/08-3/31/08. His office is 204 McAllister. His host is Distinguished Professor Jinchao Xu. Professor Dmitry Fuchs from the University of California, Davis, is visiting 1/27/08-3/23/08. His office is 428 McAllister. His host is Professor Sergei Tabachnikov. Professor Yuriy Burago from the Steklov Institute for Mathematics, St. Petersburg, is visiting 1/15/08-3/20/08. His office is 332 McAllister. His host is Professor Anton Petrunin. Professor Xiangao Liu from Fudan University is visiting 1/14/08-3/14/08. His office is 234 McAllister. His host is Professor Chun Liu. Professor Zhuo Chen from Peking University is visiting 1/15/08-4/15/08. His office is 232 McAllister. His host is Professor Ping Xu.
01 / 07 / 2008

Andrews publishes article in Notices of the AMS.
Evan Pugh Professor George Andrews and his coauthor Bruce Berndt have published an article, Your hit parade: The top ten most fascinating formulas from Ramanujan's Lost Notebook, in the January 2008 issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
01 / 02 / 2008

Tabachnikov publishes book, hosts coauthor.
Professor Sergei Tabachnikov, Director of the MASS program, has published a new book, Mathematical Omnibus: Thirty Lectures on Classic Mathematics. His coauthor, Professor Dmitry Fuchs of the University of California at Davis, will visit our department from late January to late March.
12 / 17 / 2007

Mullen and Mummert publish new book.
Recently Professor and former Department Head Gary L. Mullen, jointly with Assistant Professor Carl Mummert of the University of Michigan, published a book in the AMS Student Mathematical Library book series. The book, entitled Finite Fields and Applications, is based on a MASS course of the same title taught by Mullen in 2004 with Mummert as the Teaching Assistant. Mummert obtained his Penn State Ph.D. degree in 2005 under the supervision of Professor Stephen G. Simpson.
12 / 14 / 2007

Sellers to spend Spring 2008 at Cambridge University.
Associate Professor James Sellers, Director of Undergraduate Mathematics, has been invited to spend the spring 2008 semester as a visiting fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. Sellers will take part in an INI program on Combinatorics and Statistical Mechanics.
12 / 13 / 2007

Department of Mathematics to host conference in honor of Andrews' birthday.
On December 5-7, 2008 the Department of Mathematics will host a conference: Combinatory Analysis 2008: Partitions, q-series, and Applications. The conference is in honor of the 70th birthday of Evan Pugh Professor George Andrews. An excellent lineup of plenary speakers is already set. The conference will bring together numerous mathematicians interested in partitions, q-series, and related areas.
12 / 13 / 2007

Long elected as Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Lyle Long, Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Bioengineering, and Mathematics, was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Professor Long is currently on sabbatical leave at Caltech as a Moore Distinguished Scholar.
12 / 12 / 2007

Vaserstein's paper accepted for Annals of Mathematics.
Professor Leonid Vaserstein's paper Polynomial parametrization for the solutions of Diophantine equations and arithmetic groups (31 pages) was recently accepted for publication in the Annals of Mathematics.
12 / 12 / 2007

Visitors.
Prof. Qiya Hu from Chinese Academy of Sciences is visiting 12/2/07-2/28/08. His host is Distinguished Professor Jinchao Xu. His office is 209 McAllister. Dr. Ilie Ugarcovici from DePaul University is visiting 12/16/07-12/22/07. His office is 209 McAllister. His hosts are Shibley Professor Anatole Katok and Professor Svetlana Katok.
12 / 10 / 2007

Simpson receives grant from Templeton Foundation.
The John Templeton Foundation has granted $30,000 to support Professor Stephen G. Simpson's research project Degree Theory: A New Beginning. The project is being funded as part of the foundation's initiative, Exploring the Infinite.
12 / 10 / 2007

NSF Mathematical Sciences director visits Department of Mathematics.
On Friday November 16, 2007, Dr. Tony Chan visited our Department of Mathematics and gave a "pizza seminar" talk entitled NSF in a Nutshell. Dr. Chan is director of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences within the U.S. National Science Foundation.
12 / 05 / 2007

Andrews delivers Cherry Award lecture.
On November 13 Evan Pugh Professor George Andrews delivered his Cherry Award Lecture entitled Teaching as an Art in our department. Professor Andrews is one of three finalists nationwide for this award which is created at Baylor University to "honor great teachers, to stimulate discussion in the academy about the value of teaching, and to encourage departments and institutions to value their own great teachers."
12 / 05 / 2007

Sabbatical leave applications approved.
We congratulate Professors Leonid Berlyand, Dima Burago, Victor Nistor, Anton Petrunin, Leonid Vaserstein, Ping Xu, and Ludmil Zikatanov. Their applications for sabbatical leave for all or part of the 2008-2009 academic year have been approved.
12 / 05 / 2007

Tapia to leave Department.
Ron Tapia, our senior computer system administrator for the last five years, is planning to leave our Department at the end of 2007 to pursue an opportunity elsewhere. Ron has kept our computer network operating at peak efficiency through some major transitions. We thank Ron for his service and wish him all the best in his new position.
12 / 05 / 2007

Holiday Tea to be held on Tuesday December 11.
On Tuesday December 11 we will hold what has become a regular departmental tradition - the "Staff Appreciation of the Faculty" Tea. Staff members will supply a feast of seasonal goodies in the Synergistic Room, 113 McAllister. All are invited to enjoy the festivities.
12 / 05 / 2007

Andrews elected president of the American Mathematical Society.
Evan Pugh Professor George Andrews was recently elected to be the next president of the American Mathematical Society. The AMS is well known as the leading professional organization for United States mathematicians. Congratulations, George!
11 / 19 / 2007

Higley and Signori receive Graduate Teaching Awards.
Michael Higley and Daniele Signori are the recipients of the Departmental Graduate Assistant Teaching Awards for Fall 2007. These awards are given by the Department of Mathematics to Teaching Assistants who have made an outstanding contribution as determined by faculty visits, student evaluations, and solicited and unsolicited student comments. The value of each award is $250. Michael and Daniele will receive award certificates at the departmental awards recognition night in April 2008.
11 / 19 / 2007

---

Local Mathematics Department Documents
This page will be frequently updated with internal department news.

Department Newsletters
Read departmental newsletters from previous years.

For older news, please see our News Archive.