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1
MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER
From the Chair
Math Department Picnic, August 2014
It has been another exciting year in the Department of Mathematics. Dr. S. R. Srinivasa
Varadhan delivered the 3rd annual Fleming Lecture series in April, 2014. We are pleased to
announce that this year the Fleming Lecture Series will be given by Dr. Béla Bollobás. He will
present two lectures on April 9 and 10, 2015. We also launched an annual special colloquium
series this year. Three distinguished speakers have been invited to present talks this year.
Our programs were under review. Dr. Roger Verhey (Director of Center for Mathematics
Education, University of Michigan-Dearborn), Dr. John Bailer (Chair of Department of
Statistics, Miami University), and Dr. Raul Curto (Executive Associate Dean, College of
Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Iowa) were invited to review our programs. All external
reviews provided us with valuable material for reflection. Each area of our programs has
identified a list of actions as a result of the program review, revisited preliminary SWOT
analysis and made several changes. Summary ratings of quality, size and funding are also
obtained by each area. We will enhance our programs accordingly and maintain a
contemporary curriculum that ensures quality and excellence.
The REU program continues to attract talented undergraduates; eleven undergraduate
students came from eleven different institutions in the US. This year's program was led by
Sivaram Narayan, Debraj Chakrabarti, Kahadawala Cooray, Yeonhyang Kim, and CMU alumni
Lon Mitchell. Our student organizations continued to be very active; their advisors, Sivaram
Narayan, John Daniels and Mohamed Amezziane have provided their activity reports for
Kappa Mu Epsilon, Gamma Iota Sigma and the Statistics Club respectively. It has been the
most productive year in terms of Ph.D. graduates. Ten students successfully defended their
Ph.D. in 2013-2014. Finally, we welcomed seventeen new graduate students to the department
in Fall 2014.
I would like to thank the Newsletter Committee, Juli Arndt, Donna Ahlers and Kristin Ewald
for their efforts in putting the newsletter together. To our alumni, we thank you for your
continued support, and we wish you all the best in the coming year.
Respectfully,
En-Bing Lin
Mathematics Department Newsletter
2014-2015
In This Issue:
Fleming Lectures 2015 Page 2
Problem of the Week
STEM - Student Features
Page 3
Page 3
Special Colloquium Series
NSF REU
KME
Gamma Iota Sigma
Statistics Club
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 7
Faculty Awards and
Promotions
Page 8
Ph.D. and Master’s
Graduates
Page 9,10
Mathematics Awards and
Scholarships
Page 11, 12
New Funded Graduate Students
Page 13,14
2
Béla Bollobás to be Fourth Fleming
Lecture Series Speaker, in April
2015 The fourth Fleming Lecture will take place on April 9 & 10, 2015. The
Fleming Lecture Speaker Series is co-sponsored by the Richard Fleming
Endowed Speaker Award and the Mathematics Department. This year our
speaker will be Dr. Béla Bollobás. He will present two lectures entitled:
“Bootstrap Percolation” and “Universality for Monotone Cellular
Automata”.
Dr. Bollobás is currently Professor; Chair of Excellence, at the University of Memphis. He is known for his
work in combinatorics, particularly in graph theory. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Trinity
College.
Dr. Béla Bollobás is a Hungarian-born British mathematician who has worked in various areas of
mathematics, including functional analysis, combinatorics, graph theory, and percolation. Paul Erdős has
been his academic influence and inspiration ever since he was 14. As a student, he took part in the first three
International Mathematical Olympiads, winning two gold medals. Paul Erdős invited Bollobás to a lunch
after hearing about his accomplishments and they kept in touch since then. His first publication was a
joint publication with Erdős on extremal problems in graph theory that was written when he was in high
school in 1962.
With Erdős’s recommendation to Harold Davenport and Bollobás’ long campaigning to get permission from
the Communist authorities, Bollobás was able to spend a year in Cambridge, England during his
undergraduate studies. However, his return to Cambridge again to complete his Ph.D. upon an offer from the
university was denied by the Communist authorities. A following scholarship offer from Paris was also
rejected by the authorities. He wrote his first doctorate in discrete geometry under the supervision of László
Fejes Tóth and Paul Erdős in Budapest University, 1967, after which he spent a year in Moscow with Israïl
Moiseevich Gelfand. After spending a year at Christ Church, Oxford where Michael Atiyah held the Savilian
Chair of Geometry, and vowing never to return to Hungary due to his disillusion with the 1956 Soviet
intervention and subsequent puppet communist regime, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where in
1972 he received a second Ph. D. in functional analysis (on Banach algebras) under the supervision of Frank
Adams. In 1970, he was awarded a fellowship to the college.
Bollobás’ awards and honors include:
o External Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
o The Senior Whitehead Prize by the London Mathematical Society, 2007
o Fellow of the Royal Society, 2011
o Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, 2012
FOR MORE INFORMATION
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Béla_Bollobás
CMU Professor Emeritus Richard Fleming founded The Fleming Lecture Series upon this retirement
in 2007. The objective of the series is to bring speakers to CMU to present lectures on topics of general
interest in mathematics or lectures of special interest to mathematics students and faculty.
3
Problem of the Week
Problems are posted every Monday on a bulletin board outside of the Mathematics Department office. Students are
given one week to submit solutions. Undergraduate students who submit correct solutions are eligible for prize
money. If there is only one correct solution, then the solver wins a prize of $10. If there are two correct solutions,
the prize money is split between the two solvers. If there are more than two correct solutions, then two of the
solvers are selected at random to split the prize money. If there are no correct solutions, the prize money rolls over,
and the prize for the next week will be $20. If there are no prize winners the following week, the prize keeps
increasing. The prize total has gone up to $50 on several occasions. Anyone is allowed to submit a solution, but
only CMU undergraduate students are eligible for prize money. We have several enthusiastic problem solvers
among the graduate students in the department. We started putting the Problem of the Week online in September
2014. You can find the problems on the web page: https://www.cmich.edu/colleges/cst/math/Pages/Problem-of-the-
Week.aspx. Alternately, you can Google “cmich problem of the week”.
Spotlight on seniors in Mathematics Working with statistics professor Felix Famoye, seniors Nicole
Feinauer and Devan Walworth conducted an extensive review of
our Actuarial Science Program. The two interviewed other
schools about their programs, contacted companies in the Midwest
about what they look for in job candidates, and surveyed our current
students and alumni about their opinions of the CMU program.
After analyzing the collected data, Feinauer and Walworth
developed a new plan for CMU’s Actuarial Science major that
presents solutions for common concerns identified by the current
CMU actuarial students, alumni, and Midwest companies. By
addressing specific concerns, the two hope to increase student
satisfaction and further strengthen program graduates to make
them more competitive. In November 2014, Feinauer and Walworth
presented their research findings to faculty and students, which
included the creation of a new major map, seminar course, and a
two-track major.
Some History of CMU Actuarial Program:
In the mid 1980s Gene Chang, an actuary and CEO of an insurance company, and another insurance executive
approached Shu-Ping Hodgson, a statistics faculty member in the Mathematics Department, about the possibility
of CMU offering an actuarial science major. Shu-ping shepherded the development of an Actuarial Science major
and it was implemented in the mid to late 1980s. The first graduate of the program was in the late 1980s. Gene
currently (2015) is in an actuarial science position with a consulting firm in Chicago.
Tom Miles, a Mathematics faculty member, took over as advisor in the late 1980s and continued in this role until
his retirement in 2007. At that time John Daniels took over as advisor. Subsequently Kahadawala Cooray was
added to the faculty and developed preparation courses for Exam FM (Financial Mathematics) and Exam MLC
(Mathematics of Life Contingency) conducted by Society of Actuaries. Tom has made outstanding contributions
to the success of this program. In the early years there were 15-20 majors with 2-8 graduates per year. Now there
are over 40 majors and often double digits in graduates.
The Problem of the Week competition was started by Drs. Yury
Ionin and Sivaram Narayan in January 1995. Each year 25 problems
were presented to the students during Spring and Fall semesters.
Yury took over Problem of the Week from 1997 and continued it
until his retirement in December 2007. Dr. Sidney Graham has been
running the competition since January 2008.
4
Special Colloquium Series and Collaborator Visits 2014- 2015
We have launched an annual special colloquium series this year. Three speakers have been invited. Their
talks are scheduled as follows:
3/3/2015: Zalman Usiskin
Director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.
Recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
3/19/2015: Robert C. delMas
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Fellow of the American Statistical Association.
4/2/2015: William Fulton
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
U of M Oscar Zariski Distinguished University Professor.
AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, 2010.
Henry Russel Lecturer, outstanding achievements in research and teaching, 2005.
Beginning last year we started to have a collaborator visit program. Each visitor presents at least one talk
during the visit. This academic year we have the following collaborator visits and their presentation dates
are:
11/10/2014 Jung-Chen Liu, National Taiwan Normal University
11/18/2014 Isola Ajiferuke, University of Western Ontario
01/22/2015 Kasso Okoudjou, University of Maryland
02/05/2015 Jungho Yoon Ewha, Womens University, South Korea
03/05/2015 Shyamal Peddada, NIH
5
NSF REU 2014 By: Sivaram Narayan
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
site program at Central Michigan University
began in the summer of 2002. The goal of the
REU is to stimulate talented undergraduates to
learn new mathematics by working on
challenging, unsolved research problems.
Professor Sivaram Narayan received a 3-year grant of $283,537 for the period 2012-14. During summer 2014,
eleven students participated in the REU program. Drs. Debraj Chakrabarti, Kahadawala Cooray, Yeonhyang
Kim and Lon Mitchell were the faculty mentors for the summer.
REU program has so far worked with 147 students (72 men, 75 women), of which 107 students have been
supported by the NSF-REU grants, 30 students from CMU have been supported by CMU Summer Research
Scholarships or REU matching funds from the Dean of the College of Science and Technology, and 10
students have received support from their own institution.
The 2014 participants were:
Evan Castle, University of Kentucky
Isabel Corona, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Rachel Domagalski, Central Michigan University
David Gunderman, Wabash College, IN
Carolynn Johnson, Middlebury College, VT
Dana Lacey, North Central College, IL
Ellen Lehet, State University of New York at Potsdam
Anh Nguyen, Texas Christian University
Dylan O’Connell, Haverford College, PA
Hong Suh, Pomona College, CA
Xingyu Zhang, Penn State University
Rachel Domagalski presented a poster at the
AMS-MAA-SIAM Joint meeting in San Antonio,
January 2015. All other REU students also gave
either oral or poster presentation at the meeting.
6
Kappa Mu Epsilon (KME) Report By: Sivaram Narayan
Kappa Mu Epsilon Math
Honor Society Michigan Beta
Chapter
2014 Report
(KME Faculty Advisors: Drs. Sivaram K. Narayan and Meera G. Mainkar) During the academic semesters KME met once every two weeks. Five new members were inducted in the
spring of 2014. During February, members raised money through a used book sale held jointly with other
student organizations in the department. KME members sold travel mugs and t-shirts for Pi day (March 14). A
fundraising event was organized through the Italian Oven restaurant in April 2014. The money raised from
these events and membership dues was used for buying pizza on meeting days and for conducting an induction
ceremony.
.
List of Activities for 2014:
1. Five KME members and faculty advisor Narayan attended the Michigan Undergraduate
Mathematics Conference (MUMC) at Eastern Michigan University on March 8, 2014.
2. Professor Hugh Montgomery, University of Michigan, gave a talk on March 6, 2014. The title of his
talk was “Peg Solitaire.”
3. Dr. Ben Salisbury, CMU, gave a talk titled “Representation of the Symmetric Group” on March 20,
2014.
4. Four KME members attended the KME National Convention at Jacksonville State University,
Jacksonville, Alabama from April 9-12, 2014.
5. Professor Robert L. Devaney, Professor of Mathematics at Boston University and the President of
Mathematical Association of America gave a talk on April 16, 2014. The title of his talk was “The
Fractal Geometry of the Mandelbrot Set.”
6. KME members raised money to support the “Special Olympics” event by selling medallions.
7. On Friday, April 25 (Grace Friday), 1-5 pm, KME members held a Math-a-palooza event and tutored
undergraduate students before the final exams.
8. Dr. Narayan gave 15-20 minute talks on various topics in mathematics and its applications during many
meetings in both the spring and fall semesters.
9. A DVD show, “The Great Pi/e Debate: Which is the better number” was held on October 2, 2014.
10. Dr. Tibor Marcinek, CMU, gave a talk on October 16, 2014. It was titled, “Model-Centered Learning:
Creating Visual Mathematical Models with GeoGebra.”
11. Five members took part in the 20th Annual Michigan Autumn Take Home (MATH) Challenge on
November 1, 2014.
12. On November 13, 2014, Rachel Domagalski gave a talk on her summer 2014 REU research project on
“Frames in Finite Dimensions.” It was also an informational meeting about summer research
opportunities.
13. Math-a-palooza took place on December 5, 2014 from 1-5 p.m. KME members tutored
undergraduate students to prepare for their final exams
14. On December 6, 2014, three KME members took part in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematics
Competition.
7
Gamma Iota Sigma (GIS) Report Officers: Co-Presidents: Christina Dork and Lauren Lafountain Secretary: Jared Leach Treasurer: Sarah Mok Alumni/Industry Relations: Joanna Hampton
Fundraising and Philanthropy: Kelly Twigg
Public Relations: Blake Ryan
Co-Membership Involvement: Aziz Ghandorah and Shivam Patel
SGA Representative: Molly McNees
We currently have 31 registered members.
Semester's Events:
Our chapter hosted various workshops to prepare for the conference including dress code, interview, resume,
business card etiquette, networking, and career fair workshops. We also hosted an event with Statistics Club
and KME promoting Math-related Majors and Clubs (Math Major and Club Awareness Night). 19 Members
attended the Annual Gamma Iota Sigma Management Conference held in Dallas, Texas. I believe this is the
most who have ever attended from our chapter. Many of those members are applying and scheduling
interviews with companies and will no doubt obtain an internship or job offer. Many company representatives
came and visited us such as Farmers Insurance, Auto-Owners Insurance, Plante Moran, and Jackson National
Life. This of course includes Towers Watson who annually comes and talks about the opportunities they offer
in a more informal setting. We have participated in a few community service events with the Mobile Food
Pantry. During the final examination week, members volunteered to help tutor college students struggling in
math-related classes with KME and Statistics Club. Furthermore, we have had successful fundraisers at La
Senoritas and selling Pizza Kits.
Statistics Club Report
By Mohamed Amezziane
The Statistics Club meets every Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. The club's President is Nicole Feinauer, Vice-
President is Devan Walworth and Secretary is Ben Robinson.
The Statistics Club is building a framework for market strategy improvement that can be used by small
businesses. The construction of this framework is achieved through customer survey design and analysis of
questionnaire response data. To implement this project, the Statistics Club is using a local small business,
Painted Turtle, as a model. To assist this local pottery shop, the Club members are gathering data on both
current customers and potential customers. Survey questionnaires were handed out to the first group in
store, while the latter are the target of an online survey. In addition to demographic and education factors,
the surveys inquires mainly about the subjects' familiarity with the downtown area geography and interest
in the service provided by the pottery, which Painted Pottery seem to think might be significant factors in
discerning potential customers. Once the data collection phase is over, the Club members will start
analyzing the gathered information with the purpose of conducting a market segmentation by identifying
different customer groups in the local population and to determine important factors that determine the
customer attitude towards the business patronage.
8
Faculty Awards and Promotions Promotions, Tenure and Awards:
This past year Chin-Yi Jean Chan, Kahadawala Cooray, Yeonhyang Kim, and Christine Phelps were promoted to the
rank of Associate Professor. Chin-Yi Jean Chan and Xiaoming Zheng achieved tenure.
Katrina Piatek-Jimenez received a 10-year award
5-year awards were given to Reggie Becker, Chin-I Cheng, Christine Phelps and Xiaoming Zheng.
Carl Lee is the recipient of the 2014 College of Science & Technology Award for Outstanding Research. Carl was
nominated for the U.S. Professor of the Year Award and the 2014 Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year
Award.
Sivaram Narayan is the recipient of the 2014 College of Science & Technology Award for Outstanding Professional
Service. Sivaram is the first person in the College of Science & Technology to have earned all three CST awards
(teaching, research & service).
Felix Famoye has been elected as a 2014 Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for his significant
contributions to the statistics profession. The number of recipients is limited to no more than one-third of 1% of the
ASA membership each year.
Dr. Felix Famoye was awarded a Fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship
Program to travel to Nigeria to work with the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria on training and
mentoring of graduate students, collaborative research in statistics with faculty members, and
hosting workshops on statistical packages. This project will involve teaching and serving as
Adviser to MS and PhD students in statistics. It will involve organizing and conducting
workshops for the university community on the use of SPSS statistical package. Also, the Fellow
will engage in the curriculum revision of the MS in Statistics as well as participate in statistical
consulting for the university community. The host faculty member is Professor Toyin Ogundipe.
The University of Lagos' project is one of 59 projects that will pair African Diaspora scholars
with higher education institutions in Africa to collaborate on curriculum co-development, research, graduate teaching,
training and mentoring activities. Felix Famoye is one of 60 African Diaspora scholars who have been awarded
Fellowships to travel to Africa beginning in December 2014 to conduct the projects, which span an impressive range
of fields across the arts and humanities, social sciences, education, sciences, technology, engineering and
mathematics.
The winning projects in this second round of awards were submitted by 47 institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,
South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Dr. Debraj Chakrabarti, was recently awarded a Simons Foundation Collaboration
Grant. Supported by the Simons Foundation's Division for Mathematics and Physical Sciences,
Simons Foundation Collaboration Grants support the ‘mathematical marketplace' by stimulating
collaboration between accomplished mathematicians actively participating in research through the
funding of travel and travel related expenditures.
With this grant, Dr. Chakrabarti and his collaborators: Dr. Mei-Chi Shaw, Mathematics Professor at
the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Yunus Zeytuncu, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Michigan at Dearborn, Dr. Rasul Shafikov, Associate Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Western Ontario, Canada, Dr. Christine Laurent, Mathematics Professor at Joseph
Fourier University/University of Grenoble I, France, and Dr. Siqi Fu, Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University,
will continue their collaborative research on the functions of Several Complex Variables.
"This is a generalization of the calculus of several variables that we teach at CMU to math and science students,"
said Dr. Chakrabarti. "The main difference is the introduction of a new kind of number called a complex number
instead of the everyday 'real numbers' used in calculus. An example of a complex number is the square root of
negative one. While there is no real number whose square is negative, there is a complex number with this property."
9
2014 Ph.D. and Master’s Graduates Ahmad Alzaghal successfully defended his dissertation in December 2013. Ahmad’s Thesis
title was “Families of Exponentiated Generalized Distributions: Properties and
Applications.” His Ph.D. Advisors were Drs. Felix Famoye, and Carl Lee. Ahmad received
his Ph.D. in May 2014 and is a faculty member at State University of New York at
Oswego.
Mohammad Aljarrah successfully defended his dissertation in January 2014. Mohammad’s
Thesis title was “System of Continuous Distributions Generated from Quantile Functions.”
His Ph.D. Advisors were Drs. Felix Famoye, and Carl Lee. Mohammad received his
Ph.D. in May 2014 and accepted a position as a full time faculty at Tafila Technical
University in Jordan.
Cleland Loszewski successfully defended his dissertation in February 2014. The Title of
his dissertation was “The Symplectic Volume of the Ribbon Graph Complex.” His Ph.D.
Advisor was Dr. Brad Safnuk. Cleland received his Ph.D. in May 2014 and is currently
employed as a Senior Data Analyst at Capital One Financial in Richmond, Virginia.
Yadu Gautam successfully defended his dissertation in February 2014. The title of his
dissertation was “Novel approach for Imputing Association Statistics for Genome Wide
Association Studies.” His Ph.D. Advisors were Drs. Chen-I Cheng and Carl Lee. Yadu
received his Ph.D. in May 2014 and is hired as a fixed term faculty in our department for
the current academic year.
Azza Abu Shams successfully defended her dissertation in May 2014. The title of her
dissertation was “An Approximation to Nonlinear Coupled Reaction-Diffusion Equation
Using Adomian Decomposition Method and Fractional Operators.” Azza received her
Ph.D. in August 2014. Her Ph.D. Advisor was Dr. Leela Rakesh. Azza has been hired as
an Assistant Professor in Effat University in Jeddah Saudi Arabia.
Yousef Al-Jarrah successfully defended his dissertation in May 2014. The title of his
dissertation was “Wavelet Based method for Solving Integral Equations and
Applications.” His Ph.D. Advisor was Dr. En-Bing Lin. He received his Ph.D. degree in
August 2014. Yousef accepted a faculty position at Tafila Technical University in Jordan.
10
Mohammad Zannon successfully defended his dissertation in May 2014. The title of his
dissertation was “Third Order Shear Deformation Theory of Free Vibration of Cylindrical
Thick Shed.” His Ph.D. Advisor was Dr. Leela Rakesh. Mohammad received his Ph.D.
degree in August 2014. Mohammad accepted a faculty position at Tafila Technical
University in Jordan.
Pedro Diaz successfully defended his dissertation in July 2014 and graduated with a Ph.D. in
December 2014. The title of his dissertation is "On the Delta Conjecture and the Graph
Complement Conjecture for Minimum Semi-definite Rank of a Graph". His Ph.D. Advisor was
Dr. Sivaram K. Narayan. Pedro is currently employed as a faculty member of mathematics at the
University of Costa Rica.
Hazem Al-Mofleh successfully defended his dissertation in July 2014. The title of his
dissertation was “Robust Variogram Fitting Using non-Linear Rank-based Estimators”. His
Dissertation advisor was Dr. John Daniels. Hazem received his Ph.D. in December 2014.
Hazem is a faculty member at Tafila Technical University in Jordan.
Ansam Al-Aqtash successfully defended her dissertation in July 2014. Her thesis title was
“The Minimum semidefinite Rank of Signed Graphs.” Her Ph.D. Advisor was Dr.
Sivaram K. Narayan. Ansam received her Ph.D. in December 2014. Ansam is a fixed-
term faculty member in the Department of Mathematics at Marshall University, West
Virginia.
Masters Graduates: Anna Schneider successfully defended her Master Thesis in February 2014.
The title of her Thesis was “The Annihilating –Ideal Graph of Semigroups”. Her Thesis Advisor was
Dr. Lisa DeMeyer.
Chen Mu continued his doctoral study in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Florida State University.
Peng Shen continued his doctoral study in Economics at Indiana University.
11
Mathematics Awards and Scholarships
The Awards Ceremony was held on April 17, 2014 in Pearce Hall Hosted by
Department Chair En-Bing Lin.
Professor Donna Ericksen presented the Whitmore award
Professor Chin-I Cheng presented the Richtmeyer – Foust award
Professor Lisa DeMeyer presented the Mathematics Department Scholarships
Professor Sivaram Narayan presented the Hammel KME award
Professors Kahadawala Cooray & John Daniels presented the Miles Actuarial Award
Outstanding Teaching Assistant awards were presented by Mrs. Julia Burch
Outstanding Tutoring awards were presented by Mr. Reggie Becker
Richtmeyer-Foust Mathematics Award
The Richtmeyer-Foust Award was inaugurated in 1968 by the Mathematics Department to honor Dr. Cleon C. Richtmeyer
and Dr. Judson W. Foust. Dr. Richtmeyer served as Department Chair and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Foust served as Professor of Mathematics and later as President of the University.
This award is given to the outstanding senior majoring or minoring in mathematics. After an initial screening, the
department chooses a group of finalists who are asked to submit information about their academic and their extra-
curricular accomplishments and to write an essay discussing how their experiences at CMU have influenced them. A
faculty vote determines the recipient, who receives a plaque, and his/her name is engraved on a trophy kept in a
showcase in Pearce Hall. The 2014 recipient, Karleigh Cameron, was the 56th student to receive the Richtmeyer-Foust
Award. The 2014 finalists for the award were Peter Jaworski, Hillary Mahoney, and Tyler Wippel.
Edward H. Whitmore Mathematics Award
The Edward H. Whitmore Award in Elementary Mathematics was established in 1990 by the Mathematics Department
in honor of Dr. Edward H. Whitmore, who served the department for twenty-two years as Professor of Mathematics,
fifteen of which were spent as Chairman of the department. The distinct differences in the mathematics program for
elementary teachers make it appropriate for those students to be eligible for an award especially for them. The winner,
who is chosen in a manner similar to that of the Richtmeyer-Foust Award, receives a plaque, and his/her name is
engraved on a trophy kept in a showcase in Pearce Hall. The 2014 recipient for this award was Kristine Stafford. She
was the 31st student to receive the Whitmore Award. The 2014 finalists for this award were Jillian Carey and Lyndsey
Versteegden.
Arnold Hammel KME Award
This award was created for mathematics majors who are KME (Kappa Mu Epsilon) members to honor retired Professor
and former KME Advisor Arnold Hammel. Jocelyn Faydenko, William Persall and Jessica Willson were the 2014
recipients.
Jozefaciuk and Rutkowski Award
As a tribute to Frank and Rita Jozefaciuk and Irene Rutkowski, their family created this endowed award for junior or
senior mathematics majors with a minimum GPA of 3.4. The 2014 recipient of this award was Steven Zajac.
12
Miller Award
In honor of retired Professor William Miller and his wife, Delores Miller, this award was established for students
who are juniors with a mathematics, statistics, or actuarial science major. Elizabeth VanderWall received the 2014
award.
Richtmeyer Scholarship
Dr. Cleon C. Richtmeyer bequeathed a scholarship fund for students who are mathematics majors. The 2014 recipients
were Emily Howard, Temitope Nathan, Paige Rogers, Cal Salisbury and Steven Zajac.
Serier Scholarship
In honor of Professor Lester H. Serier and his son, Jack D. Serier, this endowed memorial was established for junior or
senior mathematics majors with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. The 2014 recipient was Casey Ferranti.
St. Andre Scholarship
Former College of Science and Technology Dean and Mathematics Professor Richard St. Andre and his wife, Karen,
created this scholarship for sophomore students with majors in the Mathematics Department. McKenna Jerant and
Joanna Sarkozi were the 2014 recipients of this scholarship.
Whitmore Scholarship
To commemorate the lives of Dr. Edward H. Whitmore and his son, Stephen H. Whitmore, an endowment was
established by the family and friends for mathematics majors who have been admitted to the Teacher Education
program. Breanna Bowen and Emily Howard were the 2014 recipients of this scholarship.
Miles Actuarial Award
Retired Professor Thomas Miles and his wife, Cindy Miles, created this award to help defray the expenses for students
taking and passing Actuarial Exams. The 2014 recipients were Nick Cracchiolo, Nicole Feinauer, Kaley Holloway,
Peter Jaworski, Kelly MacDonald, Julianna Makrinos, Devan Walworth and Jessica Willson.
Outstanding Tutoring Awards
The 2014 Awards for outstanding tutoring went to Kaley Holloway, Peng Shen and Oluremi Abaoyomi, with
Honorable Mentions going to Karleigh Cameron, Alex Lindstrom and David Grollimund.
Outstanding Teaching Assistant
Patrick Davis received the 2014 award for outstanding Ph.D. Teaching Assistant - 2nd year with Honorable Mention
going to Kenneth Goward. Matthew Barco received the outstanding Teaching Assistant award for Ph.D. students,
beyond 2nd year, with Honorable Mention going to Adam Moreno.
Dr. Frederick C. and Lois M. Kabbe Scholarship
A renewable award for a student enrolled in chemistry or mathematics with a minimum GPA of 3.0. Preference is
given to a part-time or full-time single parent household graduating from Isabella County or contiguous county high
school. The 2014 recipient was Jocelyn Faydenko.
Nikoline A. Bye Endowed Award.
An award for a student enrolled in the College of Science and Technology who is a second semester junior or senior
with a GPA of 3.6 or higher in the mathematics major, has at least one year left before graduation, and has been
admitted to the teacher education program. Preference is given to a mathematics major on the elementary curriculum.
The 2014 recipient was Courtney McGregor.
13
2014-2015 Funded Graduate Students
Elyas Al-Gharaibeh is working on a Ph.D. He earned a Master's Degree in Mathematics
from Yarmouk Uniaversity in Jordan in 2011 and received his Bachelor's Degree in
Mathematics from The Irbid National University in Jordan in 2004.
Mary Baker is working on her Master’s degree in Mathematics. She earned her Bachelor
of Science degree in Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in 2009.
Kimberley Cadogan is working on Ph.D in Mathematics. Kimberley earned a Master of
Philosophy in Mathematics from the University of West Indies (Barbados) in 2012 and
received her Bachelor's Degree in Science Economics and Mathematics also from
University of the West Indies (Barbados) in 2007.
Bryan Crouch is working on his PhD. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from
Northern Illinois University in 2009.
Alyssa Finch is working on her Master’s degree in Mathematics. She earned her
Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at Ferris State University in 2014.
Jordan Gill graduated from Spring Arbor University with a Bachelor’s of Arts in
December of 2011. He is a first-year graduate student at CMU who is pursuing a Master’s
Degree in Mathematics.
Nicole Gill is working on her Ph.D. in Mathematics. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in
Mathematics from Spring Arbor University in 2011 and her M.S. in Mathematics from
North Carolina State University in 2013.
Christopher Grow is working on his Ph.D. in Mathematics. He earned his Associate’s
degree at Grand Rapids Community College in 2009 and his Bachelor of Science in
Applied Mathematics from Grand Valley State University in 2014.
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Wilson Gyasi is working on his Ph.D. in Mathematics. He earned his M.S. Degree at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2010 and his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
from University of Cape Coast in 2006.
Hasan Isomitdinov is currently working on a Graduate Certificate in Data Mining. He
received his Bachelor's Degree Tashkent Institute of Finance in
Uzbekistan. Hasan earned a BSC in Accounting from Central Michigan University in
2014.
Monsikarn Jansrang is currently working on a Ph.D. in Mathematics. She earned her B.S.
Degree at Prince of Songkla University in Thailand in 2007.
Sean McMannamy is currently working on a Ph.D. He earned a Master's Degree in
Applied Mathematics from The University of North Carolina Ag & Tech in 2014 and
received his Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from The University of North Carolina in
2011.
Matthew Plante is currently working on a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He received his
Associates Degree in Mathematics from Alpena Community College in 2010 and a
Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from Grand Valley State University in 2012.
Caitlin Rowan is working on her Master’s in Mathematics. She earned her Associate’s in
Art degree in Mathematics from Craven Community College in 2012 and her B.S. in
Mathematics from East Carolina University in 2014.
Mohye Sweidan is working on his PhD. He started with us in the Fall of 2013. He received
his Bachelor’s degree in 2004 and his Master’s degree in 2006. Both degrees are from the
University of Jordan.
Breann Tunney is working on her Ph.D. in Mathematics. She earned her Bachelor of
Science degree in Mathematics from Saginaw Valley State University in 2010
Yifan Zhang is currently working on a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He graduated from Sichuan
University in China with a Bachelor’s of Science in 2007 and received his Master’s degree
in Mathematics from Central Michigan University in 2011.
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I want to support the students and
faculty in the Department of
Mathematics! My gift of $ is enclosed (Please
make checks payable to Central Michigan University).
DESIGNATED AS FOLLOWS:
Department of Mathematics Enhancement Fund
Other Funds (listed on the right)
Name
Mathematics
Department Newsletter
Central Michigan University
Pearce Hall 214
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Mathematics Enhancement
Nikoline Bye Endowed Award
Fleming Endowment in Mathematics
Arnold Hammel KME Endowment
Frank and Rita Jozefaciuk & Irene Rutkowski
Endowment
The Kabbe Endowment
Miles Actuarial Award
William and Delores Miller Endowment
Cleon C. Richtmeyer Endowment
Richard and Karen St. Andre Endowment
Lester H. and Jack D. Serier Endowment
Edward H. and Stephen H. Whitmore Endowment