2021-2022 Mathematics Newsletter

AY 2022 Graduates

There were two mathematics graduates this year.

To wrap up his capstone project, Austin Knull talked about his explorations into the mathematics behind measuring the power output for a Corvette for his Senior Seminar presentation.

Josh Walsh had a busy year. After attending the 2021 IBA CURE workshop, he and his group (two other students, one from from Harvey Mudd College and the other from Scripp's College) went on to give a poster presentation at the 2021 International Symposium on BEER, and then publish an expository paper, titled Clustering for the Neophyte: An R Shiny App for Self-organizing Maps, describing the outcome of their project in the undergraduate journal Spora. Since UAS is an institutional member of the IBA, UAS students like Josh and others from past years get access to these summer research experience workshops, and more.

Josh also received an EPScOR Rolling Travel Award to cover registration costs for MAA MathFest in August 2021, which he attended virtually along with Brian Blitz and Andrzej Piotrowski.

Both Austin and Josh plan to work for a while before considering further studies.

REU Adventures of Current Math Majors and Minors

Alice Mehalek was awarded the Ron Seater Award this year. This is a scholarship award of distinction for a student who is a major or minor in mathematics at UAS. This award is based upon merit, and recipients are chosen by the UAS Mathematics Faculty. Alice kept busy over this past year. She participated in an online REU offered through MIT's Summer Geometry Institute in the Summer of 2021, and then, over the Spring of 2022, engaged in a deeper study of abstract algebra through Twoples, a free online mentoring program for undergraduate students in mathematics. Mentors for this program are graduate students or postdoc volunteers.

For the Summer of 2022, Cassandra Suryan and Alice (above) applied for and were accepted to the Polymath Jr REU program. The goal of this program is to provide research opportunities to every undergraduate who wishes to explore advanced mathematics. Alice and Cassandra, along with other undergraduates from all over get to choose a project and work under the guidance of mentors (also from all over).

Elizabeth Bruch (BS Marine Biology, BS Environmental Science, Math Minor) was accepted to, and will attend the Summer 2022 Intercollegiate Biomathematics Alliance Cross-institutional Undergraduate Research Experience Workshop (IBA CURE).

Cassandra, Alice, and Elizabeth are looking forward to their summer of delving into undergraduate research on advanced topics in mathematics and its applications. We look forward to hearing about their summer experiences in exploring mathematical ideas.

Naawéiyaa Tagaban, another math major close to wrapping up his BS in mathematics, began his capstone research into the foundational ideas and applications of Laplace transforms in the complex setting. We look forward to hearing more about Naawéiyaa's explorations in the Fall.

News of Some Past Graduates

Amy Jenson (2020) just wrapped up her M.S. in mathematics at Montana State University in Bozeman. She enjoyed her time at MSU, briefly describing her activities as follows:

"Classes were in person so I met others in my cohort and settled into the department easily. My MS was supported by a teaching assistantship, so over the course of the last two years: I have tutored in the Math Learning Center, taught Survey of Calculus and Calculus 1, and been a lab instructor/TA for Calculus 2. My favorite graduate level math courses were Topology, Linear Algebra, and Partial Differential Equations I and II."

"By doing a MS in mathematics, I was able to explore research topics such as glaciology and build my quantitative knowledge, which has helped me decide my next steps."

For her M.S. thesis, Amy adapted a subglacial hydrology model to account for saline fluid flowing from a subglacial lake. A major part of this involved developing a partial differential equation to describe changing salt concentrations in a subglacial channel, and coupling  this to an existing system of equations.

Amy will be moving to Fairbanks, where she will continue her studies at the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute toward a Ph.D. Amy's doctoral work will involve glaciers -- she will be working with Dr. Martin Truffer doing research on Greenland outlet glaciers. Clearly her work at UAS with Dr. Jason Amundson got her hooked on studying mathematical geoscience. In fact, the paper on a research project she and Dr. Amundson started while she was an undergraduate at UAS has been published in The Cryosphere, a not-for-profit international scientific journal that focuses on all aspects of frozen water and ground on Earth and other planetary bodies (see https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/333/2022/).

We were visited this Spring by Stephen Perry (2006) and Blake Fletcher (2018, photo to the left). Stephen has moved back to the US from Germany, where he earned a graduate degree in mathematics and worked for several years.

After he earned his BS in mathematics and BA in creative writing at UAS, Blake went on to complete his secondary school MAT from the UAS School of Education. On moving back to Vermont, he secured a teaching position at the Lake Region Union High School where he teaches high school mathematics. Blake has since got married, and they and their four-legged companions are comfortably settled on a large rural property complete with a grove of maple trees. He goes on to say:

"The skills I learned as a tutor at the UAS Learning Center prepared me well for teaching. By the time I graduated from UAS I had years of experience reading, processing, interacting with students, and reacting to students' work before I ever stepped in the classroom. My favorite outdoor activity continues to be disc golf. I got hooked on this sport while I was a student at UAS, and I am thankful to my advisor Brian Blitz for overseeing the disc golf club that I was the president of."

During his visit, Blake could not resist sitting down and volunteering some mathematics tips for students in the Learning Center. We are sure Blake will inspire his students in Vermont, and hope he will send some of them our way.

Tony Gaussoin (2010) finished up his first year as assistant professor at the Palmer campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage, and will be continuing there next year. His plans over the summer include exploring in the surrounding mountains, visiting friends and family, researching, and catching up on neglected projects. He has some words for current and prospective mathematics majors.

"Do not feel overly concerned if you do not immediately understand a new concept. A lot of the material you are learning took hundreds (possibly thousands) of years to develop. Try to save your work. Keep a journal of problems that you found interesting or satisfying to solve. This might help you identify areas of interest and topics to pursue further. Learning LaTeX can be fun and is a great way to store and categorize your work. If you find yourself getting bogged down with all the calculus and algebra, find a neat topic in geometry or graph theory. Remember as mathematicians we are thinkers and problem solvers. We explore patterns and exploit symmetries in an effort to simplify and explain the complex."

Marshall Johnson (2019) has been invited back to help out in the Summer 2022 IBA CURE workshop in Asheville, NC. After his two-year Covid break from academics, he hopes to get back to studying mathematics in the upcoming Fall semester.

Finally, Ben Malander (2016) will be moving to Laramie, WY, to pursue graduate studies in mathematics at the University of Wyoming. His past few years as the Math/Testing Specialist at the Juneau Campus Learning Center earned him quite a few fans, so he will be missed. But, we all wish him the very best in his new mathematical adventures.

UAS Math Club and Alaska Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon

TMHS and UAS math clubs converged in November, and the UAS Math Club went back to in-person meetings with a lot of student and faculty engagement on interesting problems.

In Pi Mu Epsilon news, Hailey Quinto and Alice Mehalek were inducted into the Pi Mu Epsilon honor society, and Josh Walsh represented UAS in the MAA Putnam competition -- he received the second-highest score of any UAS student to date.

After a two-year break, the Math Club was finally able to get together with faculty and friends at the year-end BBQ.

This time the usual Auke Rec shelter was not available, so we moved over to the King Salmon Shelter at Lena Beach. Auguste provided the (live) music and everyone chipped in with all kinds of tasty food.

These gatherings, typically one at the end of each Fall semester and one at the end of each Spring semester, are open to all and usually attract a wide range of people. The conversations may involve mathematics, but often include discussions and stories covering a wide range of topics, some deep and some not so deep.

The UAS Learning Centers

The Learning Center returned to in-person tutoring, and it was great to see mathematics majors and minors return to their corner table, along with so many other students working together in the Learning Center on their science, mathematics, and statistics assignments.

The staff at the three Campus Learning Centers deserve a lot of credit and appreciation for their work over the past two years. Our thanks go out to them, for their hard work and patience through these trying times - this includes the Juneau Campus staff, Auguste, Ben, and Gabe, and Louis Scott in Ketchikan, and Max Cottrell in Sitka.

Faculty News

We are still standing, we began offering partial face-to-face classes, and along with our seasoned and new majors, we are all really looking forward to getting back (totally) into the classroom.

In general, the UAS Math faculty did a lot of service for the university (Chairing the Provost Search, UNAC Negotiation Team, Faculty Senate (x2), Retention Committee, Common Calendar Committee, Department Chairs, Faculty Handbook Committee, Evaluation Committees, Program Review, Program Review Committees, Honorary Degree and Meritorious Service Committee, Provost’s Assessment Committee, Provost's General Education Learning Outcomes Committee). Combining these activities with teaching, they were almost as busy as their students!

Starting with the busiest faculty member, Andrzej’s three-year term as chair of the Department of Natural Sciences is coming to an end, and Brian takes over starting July 1. Andrzej received the Excellence in Teaching award for AY 2022, and was granted sabbatical leave for AY 22-23. He plans to do research and apply for grants to support undergraduate research and outreach efforts. He continued to serve as a coach for the Juneau High School math club “Enigma,” and had a paper published in the College Math Journal (A. Piotrowski, Atypical series representations of Riemann-integrable functions, College Math. J., 52  Issue 1 (2021), pp. 31-38, DOI:10.1080/07468342.2021.1847589).

On top of teaching full time, Colleen earned her second master’s degree (M.S. Mathematics, Emporia State University), and similarly, Jill has been doing an excellent job representing faculty on the UNAC bargaining committee.

Megan completed her book with her colleague Sheldon Lee, Mathematical Modeling and Simulation with MATLAB, available on the UAS ScholarWorks repository at the link https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/12246.  It has a creative commons copyright license of CC, BY-SA 4.0. She also served as an executive board member of the MAA PNW section and as the director of the MAA PNW section of Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching). Megan will be taking over from Brian as the Mathematics Program coordinator next year.

In addition to taking over as Chair of the Department of Natural Sciences, Brian has been appointed as Representative of the Pacific Northwest Section to the Congress of the Mathematical Association of America, his term ends in June 2024.

Andrzej and Brian served as judges for the MAA Undergraduate Student Paper Session, and Chris has continued his involvement in the Intercollegiate Biomathematics Alliance through the IBA CURE Workshops and BEER Symposiums.

This newsletter ends with some very sad news for many. Ron Seater passed away on January 3, 2022, please see his memoriam.