2012 Graduates
Jasmina A. and Gabriel W. (A.K.A. Gabe) completed their programs this academic year. Gabe was named the Outstanding Math Graduate for 2012.
Gabe also has the distinction of being the first current UAS mathematics major to present a talk at a mathematical meeting. He presented his capstone project at the 2012 meeting of the Pacific Northwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America in April at the University of Portland in Portland, OR. His talk was titled Investigating Infinite Exponentials.
Past Graduates - Updates
Auguste S. (A.K.A. Augie) and Anthony G. (A.K.A. Tony) continued working hard, and had fun as Math Specialists at the Learning Center. They continued dabbling with their problem on "flying goats." Actually, they reached a point where they felt comfortable enough to present their findings and ideas at the 2012 meeting of the Pacific Northwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America in April at the University of Portland in Portland, OR. Their talk was titled Flying Goats and Bored Tutors. Needless to say, their talk attracted quite a bit of attention.
Tony will be leaving to pursue graduate studies in mathematics at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, starting Fall 2012. We wish him all the best.
Sean O. has just completed his first year as a mathematics teacher at Glenn's Ferry High School in Idaho. He has the following advice to current and future mathematics majors:
"NEVER give up! Just because you feel like it is taking 40+ hours to work out those 4 take home questions, don't give up on them. Don't give up on mathematics, and don't give up on learning. That tenacity, more than the theorems, more than the million and five tricks, more than the power of adding zero or multiplying by one, the tenacity to complete the task at hand no matter what is more valuable during school and after graduation, than having perfect scores in Diff Eq's ever could."
Stephen P. (A.K.A. Steve) sends this update from Germany, where he is pursuing graduate studies in mathematics:
"Things are going well with the new semester here, and you might be interested to hear I'm actually taking some applied math classes and surprisingly not even bitching about it. Did probability theory last semester, now doing mathematical stats, where I'm at least liking the 'decision theory' formalism behind the whole rigmarole, and everything is done with extreme measure theory rigor. Also taking game theory, which seems to be the source of said formalism in stats, but a lot more concrete (actually discrete) in flavor. So yeah, we got theories abounding these days."
There is no news of other graduates, as yet. If you are a UAS mathematics graduate and would like to update us on what you are doing these days, please send Chris an email. Your news will be posted at the end of this section.
Other News and Plans
General
A new course, MATH 106: Concepts and Contemporary Applications of Mathematics, has been added to the UAS Academic Catalog. This 3 credit course is to be offered every semester at the Juneau Campus, and will serve as a GER course, an alternative to STAT 107 and MATH 107.
Megan Buzby attended the International Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research (BEER Symposium for short) in December 2011 at the University of Portland in Portland, OR. One of her students, Sara Fouse, also attended and was very appreciative of the exposure to this interdisciplinary field. Megan presented a talk entitled: An Interdisciplinary Program for Undergraduates in Quantitative Ecology.
Megan and Jill Dumesnil attended the Coastal Temperate Rainforest Symposium in April. This involved listening to guest speakers, short talks, and viewing poster sessions on a wide variety of interdisciplinary work. The symposium was hosted by the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center in Juneau.
Math Club
This year, the Math Club picked up steam again, due to a solid core of interested students. They often talked about interesting problems during meetings, and they represented the Math Club in the end of the year carnival on campus. Gabe was the only one who took the Putnam Exam this year.
If past majors plan to come to town and would like to share their experiences out of school or in graduate school, members of the Math Club would be delighted to hear them. Let Andrzej know if this sounds like something you would like to do, his email address is on the Faculty page of the program website.
Other Activities
The Calculus Camp for the Juneau-Douglas and Thunder Mountain high schools took place in April. Megan and Jill conducted sessions in the I'm Going to College gathering for local kids in early May.
