AY 2023 Graduates
There were two mathematics graduates this year.
Alice Mehalek wrapped up her remarkable accomplishements at UAS, earning her second bachelor's degree, and was recognized as the Outstanding Mathematics Graduate. For her capstone research, Alice took inspiration from Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to mathematics, and presented a talk on her paper titled Alice's Adventures in Quarternionland: Hamilton's Quaternions and Quaternion Algebras. In addition to participating in the online Polymath REU in Summer 2022 and attending the Graduate Research Opportunities for Women (GROW) conference at Duke University in Fall 2022, Alice applied for and was awarded an Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (URECA) grant for Spring 2023. For this award, she led a team of Math Club members through a fun research project on the Mathematics of Board Games, which culminated in April with a talk at the URECA Student Symposium, and an outreach activity with the Thunder Mountain High School Math Club.
When asked if she would recommend the UAS mathematics program to a friend, Alice had this to say:
Yes, absolutely! The program is very welcoming to people who are unsure about math or have had difficulty with math in the past, but I think it’s also rigorous enough for people who have always been on the math track.
This math program has been an amazing home for me. I’ve never experienced this kind of encouragement, collaboration, respect, and belonging in any other school or organization. This has enabled me to thrive academically in a way I never have before. At the same time, the classes have been rigorous and challenging, and helped me gain the knowledge and skills I need. Being in this small, close-knit department has nurtured my abilities and given me opportunities to grow. Now I feel ready to go to grad school in a large department/university because I’m confident in my ability to learn, communicate, advocate, and build community. Thank you! I will miss all of you!
Alice secured admission to the Ph.D. program in mathematics at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, to where she and her family will be moving this summer so that she can continue her adventures in mathematics starting Fall 2023.
Hailey Quinto celebrated her graduation (Cum Laude) with enthusiasm and looks forward to taking a well-earned break from school. Hailey explored the Riemann Hypothesis, presenting a talk on her paper titled Peculiar Properties of The Prime Numbers: Investigating the Riemann Zeta Function. Hailey was part of the Mathematics of Board Games research team.
Congratulations to Alice and Hailey. We will miss them. But, we wish them the very best for their respective journeys forward.
Continuing Majors
Cassandra Suryan was awarded an Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship from the Alaska Space Grant Program. Under the guidance of Dr. Jason Amundson, Cassandra conducted a statistical analysis of ice flow and glacier change from glaciers around Greenland in order to better constrain the processes controlling tidewater glacier stability. She presented a poster on her research with Jason Amundson, titled Testing and Analysis of a Simple Parameterization of Iceberg Calving, at the Alaska Space Grant Program's annual meeting at UAA in April 2023. Along with Genoa Mangusso, Cassandra also received the Ron Seater Award for the 2023 academic year.
As part of a continuation of her Summer 2022 Intercollegiate Biomathematics Alliance Cross-institutional Undergraduate Research Experience (IBA CURE) research project, Elizabeth Bruch will be attending the American Chemical Society's Northwest Regional Meeting, to be held at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. Elizabeth will present work that she has been doing with Dr. Meghan McGreal of University of North Carolina, Ashville, NC. Her research has been on computational chemistry, which involves working on the UNC supercomputer using the Gaussian program to modify, and attempt to optimize the structure of the Ni-Fe Hydrogenase enzyme.
UAS Math Club and Alaska Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon
In addition to the usual lively bi-monthly club meetings, the UAS Math Club members worked with Alice on the Mathematics of Board Games URECA project. The group gave an interesting talk at the 2023 URECA Student Symposium, and hosted a very lively outreach event for Thunder Mountain High School students.
The high school students and their math teacher, Carol May, along with UAS math faculty and Math Club members spent a whole 
Saturday afternoon eating pizza and other treats, and playing a wide range of board games. Every so often, the related mathematics or statistics were discussed and it soon became very evident that there were some favorite games.
This was the first such event held at UAS, so kudos to the Math Club and the Mathematics of Board Games URECA Project team (and Denali) for arranging a very well organized and obviously enjoyable and enlightening event. Hopefully some of the high school students will come to UAS, join the Math Club, and themselves organize further enlightening and enjoyable events such as this.
The UAS Math Club held it's annual BBQ right after finals. Lots of good food, conversation, and a great view from the Sockeye Shelter at Lena Beach. As always, this get-together was not restricted to math majors, all are welcome, and others did join in the fun.
News of Some Past Graduates
Aside from enjoying the 20-below zero temperatures in Fairbanks, Amy Jenson (2020) has wrapped up the first year of her Ph.D in Geophysics at UAF. She is continuing her research into better understanding what drives changes in ice velocities on Jakobshavn, a glacier in Southwest Greenland (which she will be visiting in the near future!).
Evan Carnahan (2019) earned his MS in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021. For this he worked on Multimodal data integration with non-linear glacier flow models for the Greenland Ice Sheet, and was also a member of the UT Austin Ice Dynamics Lab team. Evan is continuing with his doctoral studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering, also at UT Austin
Katy Price (2020) is continuing with her Ph.D. at Oregon State University; Ben Malander (2016, and of Learning Center fame) wrapped up his first year of graduate studies in mathematics at University of Wyoming, Laramie; and Charles McKenry Jr. (2018) is teaching mathematics at Yaakoosgé Daakahídi High School in Juneau. Yea Charles!
If you are a graduate of the UAS Mathematics Program and have news to share about yourself, email Chris or any other UAS mathematics faculty member.
Faculty News
As usual, the mathematics faculty have been (and plan to be) busy.
Jill Dumesnil has been elected to a 3-year term as President of United Academics AAUP/AFT Local 4996
Andrzej Piotrowski was away on sabbatical for the 2023 academic year, and kept busy doing many things mathematics, including:
- Securing a Dolciani Mathematical Enrichment Grant from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) to support events for the local high school math club next year (2023-2024). This includes funding for an event on the UAS Juneau campus.
- Participating in the Research Experience for Undergraduate Faculty program at the American Institute of Mathematics, August 1-5, 2022 where his group worked throughout the year via zoom, and has been invited to hold a follow-up meeting this summer (2023).
- Co-authoring a paper with an undergraduate student Joshua Shterenberg (of Boston University). Their paper, titled Parity of polynomial multiplier sequences for the Chebyshev basis, was accepted for publication in the journal Involve.
- Serving as a grader/judge for the MAA Putnam competition and for the USA Mathematical Olympiad.
Mathematics conferences and meetings called to many. Brian Blitz went to MathFest in Philadelphia August 3-6, 2022. This is the annual national conference of the MAA, and he recently became the Pacific Northwest representative of the MAA congress. Brian and Megan Buzby went to the Pacific Northwest Section Meeting of the MAA and of Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) in March 17-18 at George Fox University, in Newberg, OR. Megan is continuing in her role as Director of the Pacific Northwest Section of Project NExT. Colleen Ianuzzi and Joe Liddle attended the (big) Joint Mathematics Meeting in Boston, MA, in January, and Chris Hay-Jahans participated in the Summer 2022 IBA CURE Workshop, held in Ashville/Black Mountain, NC. He had so much fun that he will be attending the Summer 2023 IBA CURE Workshop, to be held in Normal, IL.
