Wolfgang Bangerth and Laura Matusevich are among 118 outstanding young scientists, mathematicians and economists selected by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as Research Fellows. "The Sloan Research Fellowships support the work of exceptional young researchers early in their academic careers, and often at pivotal stages in their work," says Paul L. Joskow, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Professor Harold Boas is scheduled to receive the 2009 Chauvenet Prize from the Mathematical Association of America. This prize, awarded annually by the MAA Board of Govenors, is to reward outstanding expository writing. Professor Boas will receive this award at the 2009 AMS/MAA joint Mathematics Meetings in January, in recognition of his paper entitled "Reflections on the Arbelos" published in the American Mathematical Monthly in 2006.
On Thursday, May 1st a reception was held in honor of of Drs. Jim Bramble, Arthur Hobbs, and Kirby Smith on their retirement from the department.
Yalchin Efendiev with the approval of President Murano has been appointed as Interim Director of the Institute of Scientific Computation (founded by Richard Ewing).Rostislav Grigorchuk has been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor, effective September 1, 2008. Professor Grigorchuk became internationally famous in the 1980s for answering a key conjecture posed by a Fields Medalist, John Milnor, in the 1960s regarding growth properties of finitely generated groups. Professor Grigorchuk has been an international leader in the area of combinatorial group theory.
Peter Kuchment has been selected to receieve a 2008 Distinguished Achievement College-Level Award in Teaching sponsored by the Association of Former Students.
J. Maurice Rojas has been invited to the editorial board of the Houston Journal of Mathematics (beginning January 2008).
Sharon and Jim Suter are the proud parents of adopted baby boy Colton James Suter. Colton was born on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 12:11 pm, he weighted 6 lb., 14 oz. and 19 in. long.
Professor Emeritus Leon Bruce Treybig, 76, passed away Monday, June 9, 2008 following a brief illness. His mathematical specialties were "Point Set Topology" and "Knot Theory" and he had a lifelong passion for teaching. Bruce molded the minds of countless young college students during his combined 43 years of Teaching at Tulane University and Texas A&M University. When he retired on August 31, 2002, he was conferred the title of Professor Emeritus for his significant contributions to teaching and research at Texas A&M University.
The Department of Mathematics, in conjunction with Statistics, and Engineering has won a major research and education grant from Saudia Arabia to establish an Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (IAMCS) here at Texas A&M. This center is among four world-wide centers to be funded by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The other three centers will be at Cornell University, the University of Oxford, and Stanford University. Additional information is given in the announcement on King Abdullah University of Science and Technology home page.Winning this IMACS center is a major coup for our department, the College and the University. To give you some idea of the scale, the amount of funding is approximately seven times our prior VIGRE grant. The funds will be used to support mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists on research problems in applied mathematics and computational sciences as well as their applications to the earth sciences, material sciences, and bio-sciences. Graduate and postdoctoral education will be a major part of the Center, which will support numerous graduate and postgraduate fellowships in interdisciplinary degree and research programs in the computational mathematical sciences.
The original vision for this Center is due to Richard Ewing, and his legacy will live on through this Center. The lead PI on the Center is now James Calvin, Interim Vice President for Research. Yalchin Efendiev and Jay Walton are among the co-PIs and each had a major role in writing the proposal. Many other faculty here in the department will be involved in the Center's research activities. Even though several departments are involved in this Center, a major part of the Center will reside in our department.
Promotions of Marcelo Aguiar, Yalchin Efendiev and Hal Schenck to Professor will become effective September 1, 2008.
NSF Grant: PI, Workshop to Advise NSF on Proposed Program for Undergraduate Recruitment into Mathematics and Science $86,695, June 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009.
PI, Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, "Inverse Problems and Computational Science," $50,000, September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2010.
Collaborator, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, "Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (IAMCS) at Texas A&M University," $24,720,657, April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2013.
Qatar National Research Foundation, Groundwater models for State of Qatar, 2008-2011.