Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Math/Stat • Notes is a publication
of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Texas Tech University. It
is published once a year for alumni, faculty, students, and other
friends of the department. Editorial contributions may be sent to
Margaret Plunket at the department. Editorial supervision provided by
Margaret Plunket. Layout, design, and editorial assistance provided
by Alison Stern-Dunyak, Prairie Dog Communications.
Except where noted, photos by Darrel Thomas.
Since Dr. David Schmidly became President of Texas Tech University on August 1, 2000, strategic planning has become a high priority for the university and our department. A strategic planning committee has been at work throughout the fall semester and the process of formulating our departmental goalsand initiatives for achieving themwill continue into the spring. Nevertheless, I would like to share with you some preliminary observations regarding the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities that will ultimately shape our strategic plan.
Our department has established a high standard of research, teaching, and service. One measure of research activity in which our department continues to maintain an excellent record is external funding. During this past year, faculty from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics were principal or co-principal investigators on more than 20 National Science Foundation grants. In the last two Texas Higher Education Coordinating Advanced Research Program competitions, the department received more ARP grants (10) than any other mathematics departments in the state of Texas. Our current total of external funding, as reported on page 4, exceeds $3.8 million dollars an all-time high.
We continue to receive recognition for the excellence of our faculty and their research efforts. Frits Ruymgaart was honored as the Texas Tech 1999-2000 recipient of the Barnie E. Rushing, Jr. Faculty Distinguished Research Award. This year Ben Duran was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. He joins Clyde Martin, Fellow, IEEE, and Frits Ruymgaart, Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics as faculty who have achieved the highest distinction awarded to membership in their respective professional societies. For the second time in five years, the National Science Foundation selected the department as host for an NSF-CBMS Regional Conference in the Mathematical Sciences. This year's conference again proved a success from both a mathematical perspective and in terms of advancing the reputation of our department.
Our research and graduate programs are strengthened by a strong tradition of collaboration within and outside our department. It has been a particularly exciting fall semester for Roger Barnard and the analysis group that is highlighted on page 6. Ruth Gornet will be part of a group of geometers visiting at MSRI this spring. Currently, our faculty are engaged in projects with colleagues from TTU Departments of Plant and Soil Science, Biology, Environmental Toxicology, Mechanical Engineering, Preventive Medicine, Pediatrics, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Geosciences, and the Wind Engineering Research Center. The articles that highlight Linda Allen and the joint efforts of David Gilliam and Victor Shubov are but two examples of this type of multidisciplinary activity.
Our scholarships and endowments are vital to our undergraduate and graduate programs and these developmental efforts must be maintained. Currently, the department has in excess of $500,000 in 16 endowments and scholarships. This newsletter, published for the first time in 1993, now reaches more than 2,200 of our alumni and departmental supporters. It plays a crucial role in our developmental efforts, especially the Student Phone-a-Thon.
Our graduate enrollment has increased by approximately 15% over the last 5 years. This should be contrasted with national figures, which show a drop of 20.8% in mathematics graduate enrollment in the last seven years. Nevertheless, our production of Ph.D. students has not grown at a rate that reflects the growth in our graduate enrollment. The number of mathematics majors in our department has decreased over the last five years by approximately 20%. Though this figure mirrors the most recent national data as reported in the September issue of the AMS Notices, we must do a better job of recruiting undergraduate students to pursue careers in mathematics and statistics, especially in view of the favorable employment opportunities that exist for those who are trained in these areas.
Retirements and hiring continue to be an important issue for the department. To Dalton Tarwater and Arun Mitra, we say thank you for your many contributions to the department. We were fortunate to hire three outstanding new faculty last year: Razvan Gelca, from the University of Michigan, Padhu Seshaiyer, from the Department of Bioengineering at Texas A&M University, and Ram Venkataraman, from the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland. Nevertheless we have at this time six openings for tenure track faculty! This is a significant challenge but also an opportunity to shape the future of this department.
As the university plans to achieve the vision that has been set forth by our new president, our department will be formulating a strategic plan that will be challenging and yet respectful of our collegial history. I have great confidence in the collective wisdom and abilities of this department to achieve the standards of excellence that will benefit our students and advance our standing in the larger scientific community.
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics
hosted the NSF-CBMS Regional Conference
in the Mathematical Sciences,
"Superconver-gence in Finite Element Methods," from May 22 to 26, 2000.
The conference, which featured Professor Lars B. Wahlbin of
Cornell University as principal lecturer, attracted more than 30
researchers from around the United States.
Professor Wahlbin gave 10 masterful lectures that introduced the main techniques of the field, gave a survey of the major recent developments, and outlined open problems. Special invited lectures were give by Professors J.E. Akin, Rice University; Clint Dawson, University of Texas at Austin; Alfred H. Schatz, Cornell University; Jumping Wang, Colorado School of Mines; Zhimin Zhang, TTU and Wayne State University; Beatrice Riviere, University of Texas at Austin; and Hong Wang, University of South Carolina.
University President David Schmidly (then Vice-President of Research, Graduate Studies, and Technology Transfer) welcomed the participants at the opening session on Monday morning. The remarks of Dr. Schmidly and Provost John Burnsfeatured speaker at the conference banquet on Thursdayemphasized the considerable research accomplishments of the department and Texas Tech. A tour of the Texas Tech High Performance Computing Center at Reese Center reinforced this positive impression.
Excellent talks and a friendly, interactive environment characterized the productive week. Participants enjoyed the West Texas culture, including a barbecue dinner and trips to the Llano Estacado Winery and the Ranching Heritage Center. Attendees were effusive in their praise of the cordial welcome extended by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the organization of the eventespecially the work of Margaret Plunket. Zhimin Zhang and Lawrence Schovanec were co-principal investigators on the NSF grant that provided conference support.
Professor Frits Ruymgaart
was
selected as the 1999-2000 recipient of the Barnie E. Rushing, Jr. Faculty
Distinguished Research Award in honor of his many and varied contributions to
research. This university-wide award, which carries an honorarium of
$1,500, is sponsored by the Texas Tech Association of Parents and recognizes
outstanding scholarly activity by a member of the Texas Tech University faculty.
Dr. Ruymgaart has a distinguished publication record, including more than 80 papers in the best statistics
journals and more than 70 invited lectures at major universities
around the world. He has been recognized for his contributions in
statistics by being elected a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics
and as a Member of the International
Statistical Institute.
In honor of Dr. Ruymgaart's 60th birthday, a conference entitled "Frontier Research in Theoretical Statistics 2000" was held at the "EURANDOM" in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in August 2000. With 15 internationally renowned invited speakers and a total of 75 participants from around the world, this conference exemplified the high regard in which the scientific community holds him. A collection of the most significant papers presented at this meeting will be published as a special issue of Statistica Neerlandica entitled "Frontier Research in Theoretical Statistics 2000 on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Professor Frits Ruymgaart."
Remarkably, in the spring of 2000 he was also chosen by the graduate students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics as the Graduate Professor of the Year and was selected by the Kappa Mu Epsilon undergraduate student organization as Professor of the Year. To receive such honors in the same academic year is high tribute to the breadth and depth of Professor Frits Ruymgaart's achievements as a scholar and educator.
For the past half century Robert
A. (R.A., "Doctor Bob") Moreland
has been an important part of the
Texas Tech mathematics experience. Sadly, he passed away on
September 7, 2000, after a struggle with cancer. He was on the
mathematics faculty for 45 of his 69 years.
Dr. Moreland came to Texas Tech as an undergraduate, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics, here then went on to the University of Texas at Austin for his Ph.D. in numerical analysis. He was associate chair of the department from 1976-1978. For about 20 years he was in charge of the business math sequence. R.A. Moreland knew every chairperson the department has had, from J.N. Michie to Lawrence Schovanec.
For two decades, Professor Moreland was the chapter advisor for the Texas Alpha chapter of Kappa Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honorary, and of Sigma Nu, the social fraternity. He was involved with the regional University Interscholastic League competitions and he created and taught an informal course to prepare majors for the actuarial exams. The MAA Chapter named him Outstanding Professor in 1994.
Many students have been influenced by Professor Moreland, whose example spoke to many of us through a life of generosity, outspoken honesty, and fun-loving companionship.
His family suggests memorials to the Robert A. Moreland Scholarship Endowment, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-1042.
At seven home football games this season, a member of
the department's faculty a.k.a. "The Goofy Math
Professor"
asked and explained the answer to a mathematics question featured
on the Jumbotron. The cartoon above appeared in the University
Daily following Tech's somewhat less-than-stellar performance
against Nebraska. Apparently the "Tech Tail Gater" doesn't think
this needed to remain an open question!
New faculty . . .
Dr. Razvan Gelca
joined the faculty this
fall after holding the position of Assistant Professor
at the University of Michigan. Dr. Gelca received
his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1997.
While there he received the University of Iowa
Outstanding Teaching Award and the D.C. Spristersbach
Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in
Mathematical and Physical Sciences and
Engineering. Dr. Gelca's primary research interests are in
low dimensional topology and quantum invariants of knots. He has a keen interest in mathematical
competitions and has served as coach of the USA
International Mathematical Olympiad Team. He is
currently a member of the Advisory Panel of the
USA Mathematical Olympiad. Dr. Gelca is a
co-author of the book Mathematical Olympiad
Challenges, published this year.
Dr. Ram Venkataraman,
who received
his doctorate in electrical engineering from the
University of Maryland in 1999, will join the
faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2001. He is
on leave this year while working in the Control
Sciences division of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Dr. Venkataraman's research deals with modeling
and hardware implementation of electro-magneto-mechanical devices. While at Wright-Patterson
he will be involved in research concerning control problems for hypersonic aircraft.
Assistant Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer joins the faculty after having completed a post-doctoral position in the Department of Bio-engineering at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland-Baltimore. Dr. Seshaiyer's primary research interests are in the area of computational biomechanics and numerical analysis with an emphasis on finite element methods. The National Institute of Health and the Lung and Blood Institute have supported his work.
Invite them and they will come . . .
Linda and Ed Allen gave invited presentations at the Third World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts University of Catania, Sicily, Italy. Roger Barnard was elected President of the Rocky Mountain Mathematics Consortium Board for the 2000-2001 year. Hal Bennett spoke at the Spring 2000 Topology Conference in San Antonio. Kamal Chanda presented a talk at the Fifth World Congress of the Bernoulli Society and at the Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics held at Guanajuato, Mexico. W.P. Dayawansa gave an invited talk at the Summer Workshop on Nonlinear Control at Tsinhua University and organized by the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. James Dunyak presented a talk at the 8th ASCE Conference on Probabilistic Mechanics and Reliability, South Bend, Indiana. Ben Duran attended the National Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, Portland, Oregon, where he prepared an exhibit for recruiting graduate students. James Epperson made an invited presentation to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in El Paso. Dave Gilliam spoke at the conference Computation and Control VI, Bozeman, Montana. Gary Harris was an invited participant at the MAA session, "Research on Undergraduate Mathematics Education," Joint Meeting of AMS-MAA, Washington, D. C. Razvan Gelca gave an invited colloquium at SUNY at Buffalo. Ruth Gornet spoke at the "Workshop in Inverse Spectral Geometry" at the University of Kentucky in June. Ruey-Jen Jang contributed a talk at 13th IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems, Houston, Texas. Anatoly Korchagin presented a talk at the AMS Special Section, "History of Mathematics," San Francisco State University, CA. Wayne Lewis gave an invited address to the First International Conference on Continuum Theory, Puebla, Mexico. Hossein Mansouri contributed a talk at the Joint Statistical Meetings, Indianapolis, Indiana. Clyde Martin was appointed secretary of the SIAM Activity Group on Life Sciences. Frits Ruymgaart gave an invited talk at the meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada in Ottawa. Lawrence Schovanec presented a workshop on "Biological approaches to control system problems" at the 2000 American Control Conference in Chicago. Carl Seaquist gave an invited talk at an AMS Special Session on Continuum Theory, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Padhu Seshaiyer presented an invited talk at the "p and hp finite element methods" conference, Washington University, St. Louis. Marianna Shubov gave an invited talk at the International Workshop on Wave Propagation Phenomena, Calgary University, Canada. Victor Shubov was an invited speaker at the 3rd International Conference on Nonlinear Problems in Aviation and Aerospace, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL. James Surles presented an invited talk at the 37th Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science, Columbia, SC. Alex Wang gave an invited talk to the workshop on "Partially Known Matrices and Operators," Centro Internacional de Matemática Coimbram, Portugal. Brock Williams was an invited speaker at the Mathematical Challenges of the 21st Century conference in Los Angeles. Song Yang gave an invited colloquium at the College of Mathematical Sciences, Sichuan University, China.
Not just "survivors," these faculty members
are thrivers! This year's academic year kick-off
party also honored those receiving tenure and promotion. Congratulations to (l. to r.) Dr. Song
Yang, promoted to full professor; Dr. Ruth Gornet, promoted to associate professor with tenure;
Dr. James Dunyak, promoted to associate professor with tenure; and Dr. Marianna Shubov,
promoted to full professor. (Dr. Gornet officially received tenure last year but was on a fellowship leave at
the University of Kentucky.) And thanks to Bea Schovanec, Dr. Lawrence Schovanec's mother,
for putting together such a great party!
The 27th Annual Mathematics and Statistics Awards Banquet was held at the McInturff Center on April 10, 2000. The attendance was particularly good this past year, with more than 150 faculty, students and family members, retired faculty, scholarship donors, and friends enjoying the event. Various faculty and student organizations presented awards.
Mrs. Molly Pattillo and Mrs. Anne Spitler, donors to the Morrison-Broughton Scholarship, received special recognition as did Mrs. Catherine Baldwin Benge, who is creating an endowment in memory of Professor George Baldwin.
Dr. Robert Moreland received his pin for 45 years of teaching at Texas Tech. Professor Frits Ruymgaart was named Distinguished Professor by Kappa Mu Epsilon. The Student Chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) named Professor Ruymgaart as the Outstanding Graduate Professor. Professor Dalton Tarwater was named Professor of the Year by the Texas Tech Student Chapter of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).
Twenty-eight students were awarded scholarships ranging from $200 to $1,500 for the academic year, for a total of $35,000. For the 1999-2000 year the E. Richard Heineman Scholars were Lauren Ferguson, Jennifer James, and Melissa Zygmon; the Gordon Fuller Scholars were En-Joo Lee, Seung-Hwan Lee, Bernard Omolo, and Brian Roberson, while Susan Bigham and Carrie Mahood were the Patrick Odell Scholars. Josh Baker was the John T. White Scholar, Jacob Mathis was Tarwater Scholar and Sherri Wilson was an Emmett Hazlewood Scholar.
For the 2000-2001 academic year, the Emmett Hazlewood Scholars are Christina Anaya, Benjamin Bailey, John Baird, Jeremy Bellah, Erin Deaton, David Dennis, Lauren Ferguson, Matthew Gamel, Jeremy Sain, Jarrod Shepard, Brian Tate, and Jared Tate. Jearlyn Holland is a Heineman Scholar and Blake Rutherford is a Langston Scholar. The Moreland Scholars are Samantha Bouquin, Brian Guyer, Anne McGuire, and Sherri Wilson, while Brian Guyer is also a Morrison-Broughton Scholar. The 'dub' Rushing Scholars are Jill Broadway, Frank Patrick Garcia, and Casey Hume, while Jacob Mathis, Nathan Rogers, and Sky Sjue are the Tarwater Scholars. Angie Pierce is the Paul Thompson Scholar and Steven Prater and Amanda Richards are the Derald Walling Scholars. Heather Jordan, Evaluation Specialist of the Dallas Independent School District presented the second Herman Reynolds Scholarship to Clint Richardson.
The MAA presented scholarships to Casey Hume and John Baird, while SIAM presented scholarships to Richard Campos and Cindy Martin.
For those of you who missed it--
One of the highlights of this year's departmental
banquet was the speech by graduate student Jeff Hood,
introducing MAA Secretary Natalie Stobie. For those of you
unable to attend the banquet, Math/Stat·Notes is pleased
to present the text of his talk.
My name is Jeffrey Braidon Hood, also known as "That Spiky-haired Guy." I was also on the Math-CS degree plan, but I decided to devote myself to mathematics so I could spend more time programming. I wish I could say I'm here because I'm important for my ability to stay afloat in shallow water or my ability to stay crunchy in milk, but really it's because I begged Margaret, and she said, "Okay."
I have a speech prepared
Speech:
According to Joel E. Cohen of Rockefeller University, there are two kinds of scientists:
1. The Social Scientist
2. The Anti-social Scientist
Mathematicians are usually considered to be part of the latter categorythere's probably a good reason for that. We are thinkers. P.J. O'Rourke says in his book on Modern Manners:
"Thinking is actually rude in and of itself. Manners involve interaction with others. You cannot, for instance, think and listen to what other people are saying at the same time. And what most people have to say doesn't merit much thought; so if you are caught thinking, you really have no excuse.
"As a result of thinking's innate rudeness, thinking people are not often popular. Although the Curies were extremely famous, they were rarely invited our socially. They were too thoughtful. Also, they glowed."
We mathematicians are much the same, so we have to congregate together, which we do as young mathematicians, like grad students and graduating seniors. But as we get older, we tend not to congregate at all until the annual banquet when we feel an obligation to do so, so the younger mathematicians won't lose heart and switch to theater or fine arts.
So every year, we hold this banquet, and every year, the out-going seniors are verbally slammed in Dr. Harris' time-honored tradition. So, as it is the year 2000, we the graduating seniors, have decided to prepare a bit of pay-back and with that, I give you Miss Natalie Stobie.
The resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem in1994 resulted in an increased public awareness about mathematical conjectures. Beyond the mathematical implications of solving a publicly acknowledged open problem, the intrigue, frustration, and exhilaration associated with conjectures capture the interest of most mathematicians. There are, however, few mathematicians who devote a good part of their careers to the risky undertaking of trying to solve such problems. An exception is Professor Roger W. Barnard, who has spent most of his career resolving longstanding problems and conjectures proposed by a number of prominent mathematicians.
Dr. Barnard's first paper (in 1973) was a counterexample to the "2/3" conjecture made by A. Shield 21 years earlier. Dr. Barnard and a colleague, Professor J. Lewis from the University of Kentucky, gave a mathematical counterexample to this conjecture dealing with the amount of distortion associated with forces created by an incompressible fluid. Working in collaboration with colleagues from around the world, Dr. Barnard has resolved a number of open problems. A partial list of his accomplishments includes: a counterexample to S. Bernard's 15-year-old conjecture on the radius of starlikeness of (zf)'; the best-known estimates on R. Robinson's
1/2 conjecture made in 1947; and upper and lower estimates to
the omitted-area problem posed by A.W. Goodman in 1949.
Other members of the department work actively to solve
open problems. Professor Kent Pearce (who also serves as
Associate Department Chair) has collaborated fruitfully with his colleagues
in this area. For example, in a series of recent papers, Drs. Pearce
and Barnardalong with their former Ph.D. student, Kendall
Richardsverified and generalized solutions to conjectures made by
M. Vourinen involving hypergeometric functions. Vourinen had
proposed a conjecture in 1994 regarding an inequality developed by Muir
in 1883 that concerned an approximation to the arclength of an
ellipse. The authors verified Vourinen's conjecture and gave a
complete hierarchical relationship of approximations of elliptical
arclength, whose origins ranged over four centuries, starting with Kepler's
in 1609.
Since the beginning of the fall 2000 semester, Professors
Barnard and Pearce and several of their students, including Ph.D.
students Clint Richards, Leah Cole, and Lenny Ornas, have benefited from
the contributions of visiting professors Alex Solynin and Brock Williams.
Professor Solyninpermanent senior research fellow at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg, Russiais credited with creating the notions of "polarizations" in the early 1980s. This has become one of the major tools for solving extremal problems in complex analysis. He has also solved several long-standing problems in complex analysis, including the 40-year-old Pölya-Szegö isoperimetric problem and H. Shapiro's 32-year-old problem on minimal area for conformal maps. Visiting Assistant Professor Brock Williams works in the field of "circle packing," a relatively young and burgeoning field introduced by Field Medalist William Thurston.
It may seem like science fiction to those who have endured the fury of a tornado, but the mathematics says there is a way to diminish the destructive power of this weather phenomenon. That's what Professors David Gilliam and Victor Shubov have discovered as part of a research project funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Advance Research Program.
Scientists have known for many years that debris picked up by a tornado makes it more stable. What Gilliam and Shubov have discovered through their analysis of wind flow modeled by Navier-Stokes equations is that extremely fine dust could diminish or even destroy a tornado. Navier-Stokes equations are deceptively simplethey require only a couple of lines to write down.
These equations, however, represent one of the most famous unsolved mathematical problems. In fact, Navier-Stokes is one of seven mathematics problems listed as a Millennium Prize Problem by the Clay Mathematics Institute, which offers a $1 million dollar prize for its solution. Gilliam and Shubov's analysis, which deals with certain aspects of these equations, is being prepared for publication in monograph to be published as part of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Series, Frontiers in Science.
Professors Gilliam and Shubov
have conducted this work
in cooperation with Texas Tech's Wind Engineering Center and
the Department of Geosciences. Although this collaboration
strengthens the potential benefit from this research, these mathematicians
don't profess to have a method for manufacturing the fine dust or
injecting it into a tornado. "We don't claim our work will have
immediate practical application," says Dr. Shubov. "But you must ask
the questions. Once one understands something, then one might begin
to think about practical applications."
Focus on the Faculty
Professor Ben Duran 
was named a Fellow of
the American Statistical Association at a
presentation ceremony during the ASA Presidential Address at
the 2000 Joint Statistical Meetings held in Indianapolis
in August. The designation of Fellow is a
superlative honor in the Association and has for more than 75
years signified an individual's outstanding service to and leadership
in the field of statistical science. According to a news release by the
American Statistical Association,Dr. Duran was recognized "for
contributions to nonparametric statistics, for significant consulting in
biomedicine and industry, for excellent leadership in statistical education and
outreach to public school students, and for service to the profession."
Dr.. Duran, who received his Ph.D. in 1966 from Colorado State
University and joined the faculty at Texas Tech University 1971, has directed
43 master's and Ph.D. students.
Professor Linda Allen
has been granted a Faculty Development Leave for the spring 2001semester in order to work on
a graduate textbook biomathematics. The book is an expansion and revision of
classroom notes that she has developed for the popular graduate level courses,
Biomathematics I and II. The book reflects some of Dr. Allen's research interests and is
indicative of a range of research collaborations
that she has developed with other faculty from various departments
at Texas Tech. The book will describe deterministic and stochastic
mathematical models in biology and mathematical techniques that are
useful in analyzing the models. Classical models for host parasite
systems, age-structured populations, the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey and
competition equations, and Fisher's equation for the spread of genes in
a population. In addition, her textbook will present some current
mathematical models for AIDS.
During the fall 2000 semester Paul Whitfield Horn Professor
Clyde F. Martin
spent a faculty development
leave at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. While at KTH,
Professor Martin continued his research in areas of biomathematics, financial
mathematics, control theory and statistics. Dr. Martin, who holds the position of
Guest Lecturer at KTH, also has established an
exchange program for graduate students at Texas Tech University
and KTH. This exchange program, funded by a grant from the National
Science Foundation, has provided the opportunity for four graduate
students from our department to conduct research at KTH during
extended stays in Sweden. During the spring semester, two of Dr. Martin's
graduate students visited the institute as part of this program. Five
students from KTH have spent semesters in residence in our department
during the last few years. Currently, Peter Hallgren, a graduate student from
KTH, is visiting our department and
conducting research in the area of mathematical modeling of circadian rhythms of the
mammalian brain under the direction of Dr. Martin and Dr. W.P. Dayawansa.
Associate Professor Ruth Gornet
has been invited to the Mathematical
Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Berkeley,
California, for part of the spring semester 2001. She
plans to attend the conferences
"Geometric Aspects of Spectral Theory" and
"Geometric Scattering Theory" while in residence as a
visiting specialist. MSRI is an NSF-funded mathematics institute that features a different
area of emphasis every semester. Spring 2001 is devoted to spectral invariants. The institute
is sponsoring Gornet's stay in Berkeley. "This
invitation is a real honor, and the Tech administration has been incredibly cooperative
about adjusting my teaching schedule to accommodate this absence," Dr. Gornet says. "This will
give the opportunity to spend 24-7 on my
research, surrounded by the world's best spectral theorists, and in an environment
devoted solely to research." Previously, Gornet
spent fall 1993 at MSRI as a Postdoctoral Fellow,
as part of the 1993/94 Special Year in Differential Geometry.
Professor Arun Mitra
retired in August
2000, more than 33 years after joining the Department
of Mathematics and Statistics. Before he came to
Texas Tech University, he was a Humboldt Fellow at Marburg University, where he
also received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics.
His interests in science have spanned a broad
range of topics over a period of 40 years.
His first paper, "The Boltsman-Landau Transport Equation," appeared in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1960, while his most recent publication, "Equilibrium Stability of Metapopulations with Dispersions," appeared just this year in the Journal of Mathematical Biology. Dr. Mitra has always held a deep appreciation of music. He recently published a paper on aspects of the geometry of the violin in Applied Math and Computation (1999).
Professor J. Dalton Tarwater
retires at the end of
the fall semester. He has been a faculty member
since 1968, when he returned to Tech after graduate study
in New Mexico and faculty positions in Michigan
and Texas. At one time or another he held every
departmental office except graduate advisor, indicative of
his exemplary service and dedication to the department.
Professor Tarwater was the local arrangements chairperson for five professional meetings at Tech and was on the organization committee of six national or regional meetings. He authored or coauthored eight books and 12 papers, while he directed six master's and one Ph.D. student.
For the past 25 years, Professor Tarwater has been very involved in building the endowment for the mathematics scholarship program. "The great thing about the Tech mathematics family is that when we have declared our need to grow the scholarship endowment, they have responded most generously," he said. When asked what he will miss most, Tarwater said "...the absolutely great peoplestudents, faculty, and staffwho I have enjoyed knowing in the department." The feeling is mutual!
In December 1999, Mr. and Mrs. W.B. "dub" Rushing added $10,000 to the Rushing Family Endowment in Mathematics. Their continuing generosity to the department over a period of a decade brings the endowment total to more than $37,000. The department is extremely fortunate to have friends as generous as the Rushings.
For the current academic year, Patrick Garcia of Abilene, Jill Broadway of Waco, and Casey Hume of Amarillo each received $1,000 stipends as Rushing Scholars.
. . .these are real babies! Best wishes to our faculty and their children:
· Professors James Epperson and Minerva Cordero-Epperson, a son, Nicholas Jacob Cordero Epperson, February 1, 2000.
· Professor James Surles and his wife, Regina, a son, Jonathan Gunn Surles, April 7, 2000.
· Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer and his wife, Valli Padmanabhan, a daughter, Pradyuta Padmanabhan, October 24, 2000.
Catherine Benge has established the George L. Baldwin Undergraduate Mathematics Scholarship Endowment. Professor Baldwin passed away on December 23, 1995, and had been a member of the department from 1966 to 1988. His colleagues fondly remember him as a dedicated teacher and supportive departmental member. This endowment is a most appropriate memorial to his memory.
Once again, the Mathematics and Statistics students plan to have their annual Phone-a-thon during the evenings of February 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 2001. The Math and Stat majors VOLUNTEER to call! As usual, a brightly colored postcard will be mailed in January to remind you that our students will be calling.
Remember, if you are called by anther program at Texas Tech, you may have any gift designated for the MATH department.
Students graduating with degrees in mathematics continue to be rewarded. During this past year, 19 graduate students received master's degrees, while 22 mathematics majors were awarded the bachelor's degree. Our 2000 graduates are employed by ConAgra, Dynegy Corp, Kettering Cancer Research Center, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, South Plains Community College, Lee College, Wayland Baptist, and public school systems in Frisco and Aspermont, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia. Several M.S. graduates are now pursing the Ph.D. in our department while others have enrolled in graduate programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic, Virginia Tech, SMU, and Arizona State.
Several mathematics students received special recognition during this past year. Cheryl Peterson, a doctoral student, was selected as a NASA/Texas Space Grant Consortium Fellow for the 2000-2001 academic year. The NASA fellowships were established to encourage the research of outstanding graduate students in the fields of space science and engineering and carry a $5,000 stipend. Ms. Peterson's research, directed by Professor Marianna Shubov, addresses the problem of flutter suppression in aircraft wings.
The Lubbock Chapter of Achievement Rewards
for College Scientists (ARCS) honored Kimberly
Drews
with a scholarship in support of her studies in statistics. This is
the second time that Kimberly, who is a
Ph.D. student working under the direction of Professor Hossein Mansouri, has been
awarded an ARCS scholarship. Jared Wolf,
a senior
mathematics major, was also selected
as an ARCS scholar. Jared plans to enter medical school
after graduation.
Scholarships from the graduate school recognized high academic achievement and enhanced our recruitment of outstanding students. Congratulations to graduate students Kandle Kulish, Stephanie Miller, and Ed Swim, who each received Chancellor's Fellowships this year.
Texas Tech University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Broadway and Boston, Lubbock, TX 79409-1042
Phone: 806.742.2566 |
