All the v’s that's Fit to Print

U C C S M A T H D E P A R T M E N T

2016

LAS Outstanding Student Awards During the “end of year awards ceremony” on May 10, 2016, the following mathematics students were honored for their academic achievements during the Academic Year 2015/2016 by the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences:

• Outstanding BA in Mathematics -Katrina Elizabeth Biele -Shane Ryan Richmond

• Outstanding Graduate Student -Katherine Mary Cliff

• Lorch Family Scholarship -Benjamin Griffith -Clark Mourning

Volume 20 Number 1

In this issue

• Lorch Scholarship Awarded

• Math Kangaroo

Competition

• Annual Distinguished Lecture Series

• Welcome three new

Instructors!

• Math Faculty Updates

• In Memoriam: Dr. Keith L. Phillips

FALL 2016

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Math Department Faculty

Lorch Scholarship Recipients The family of former UCCS Professors Bob and Barbara Lorch established the Robert S. and Barbara R. Lorch Department of Mathematics Endowed Scholarship in 2009. The late Drs. Lorch taught political science and sociology, respectively, for more than 30 years. Bob and Barbara’s son John earned a B.A. degree in math at UCCS in 1988, went on to earn his Ph.D. in mathematics, and is now a Professor of Mathematics at Ball State University in Indiana. The funding provides for merit-based scholarships for junior or senior math majors. In this, the eighth year of its existence, the department awarded Lorch Scholarships to Clark Mourning, and to Benjamin Griffith. Ben notes: "I am grateful for the Lorch family and their ongoing generosity toward math students at UCCS, and am honored to be a recipient of their scholarship. The Lorch Mathematics Scholarship empowers young minds to thrive inside of the uniquely supportive math department at UCCS. I graduate this December with confidence about my future, thanks to the earnest encouragement, insight, and support of math faculty members including Dr. Greg Oman, Dr. Greg Morrow, Mr. James Parameter, Dr. Gene Abrams, Dr. Jenny Dorrington, and Dr. Radu Cascaval. The Drs. Lorch helped make my time here as rewarding as possible!" Clark offered these words of thanks: "For me, the Lorch scholarship has been the difference between delivering pizzas on the weekends to pay my bills, and focusing on my academic and personal interests. I am very thankful for the time to further my academic development that this scholarship has afforded me, and I am blessed to be pursuing a degree in a department whose faculty so genuinely care about my and my classmates' success." Congratulations to both Ben and Clark! (ed's note: and thanks for the kind words about the department and its faculty …)

75% of the UCCS Math Department faculty. Photo taken November 2016

L to R: Reece Adragna, Bob Carlson, Yu Zhang, Katherine Cliff, Jenny Dorrington, Shannon Michaux, Greg Oman, Radu Cascaval, James Parmenter, Greg Morrow, Gene Abrams, George Rus, Oksana Bihun, Sarbarish Chakravarty. Not Pictured: Peter Braza, Meredith Casey, Wojciech Kossek, Barbara Prinari, Rinaldo Schinazi

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UCCS Putnam Competition This year UCCS's Putnam team consisted of John Roberts and Laney Bowden who took the exam on December 3, 2016. Information about the Putnam Exam can be found at http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam. Any reader interested in the Putnam Competition, or other math department undergraduate activities should contact Dr. Radu Cascaval (rcascava@uccs.edu).

TheUCCS2016PutnamTeam:JohnRoberts&LaneyBowden

Math Club Revival Math Club Revival! After a few years of dormancy, the UCCS Math Club made its return this Fall. Under the current leadership of Laney Bowden, Math Club focused on recruiting new members, building enthusiasm in the community, and becoming organized for the spring semester. Club members attempted several Putnam problems throughout meetings during Fall semester. (The two UCCS Putnam participants are pictured here.) The Club's end-of-the-year newsletter will provide community tutoring opportunities and information to help students find and apply to Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs. Laney notes: "We hope to start the spring semester with a variety of different events that the community can attend. By trying to increase student attendance at math department colloquia, providing movie nights for math students to get to know each other, and starting up a special topic lecture series, Math Club hopes to gain more members that have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the exciting world of mathematics." For more information, contact Laney at abowden@uccs.edu .

Peer Leader Conference

L to R: Sean Dean, Greg Christ, Slade Rodrigues, Heather Balle-Mason, Evie Godec, Miccella Staiano, Andrew Jones, Jenny Dorrington.

In March, tutors and PASS (Peer Assisted Study Session) leaders from the Math Center and the Language Center attended the PEER Leader Conference at CU Denver. Students attended and presented at a poster session on the benefits and outcomes of tutoring initiatives at UCCS. Visit the Math Center in ENG 233 to see the poster they presented!

Notice the cool new UCCS Math Department T-Shirt that Laney is wearing.

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Congratulations 2016 Math Graduates!

Undergraduate Degrees B.A. Mathematics

• Yaser Ali Al Qatifi • Katrina Elizabeth Biele • Rachel Drawbond • Benjamin P. Griffith • Laura Horner • Douglas Berry Jones • Logan Miller • Shane Ryan Richmond

B.S. Mathematics

• Sabaa Alshammari • Dominique Nicole Brasee • Casey Russell Chalifour • Julian Felipe Gonzales • John Lassiter • Timothy Andrew Retting

MSc Mathematics • Sujee Shin

Here is the list of the graduates from each of the department’s degree programs in 2016.

Honors Track in Mathematics Students with a high Math GPA are encouraged to consider the Honors Track within the BS and BA Math Degrees, preferably in their sophomore or junior year. This track’s main purpose is to help identify and encourage qualified students to take on challenges beyond the standard math curriculum. A Math GPA of 3.5 and a general GPA of 3.0 are part of the requirements by the time of graduation. The highlight of the track is a written report on some undergraduate research project, a senior thesis or a senior project in an advanced course, under the supervision of a faculty advisor. For a detailed description and application form, visit: http://www.uccs.edu/math/undergraduate-programs/math-honors-track.html

Graduate Degrees MS Applied Mathematics

• Katherine Mary Cliff • Matthew Michael Jones • Ikuko Saito

For more information about UCCS Commencement please visit: http://www.uccs.edu/~commencement/

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Math Kangaroo Competition

TheMathKangarooChallengewashostedagainthisyearbytheUCCSMathDepartment,aspartoftheworldwideannualeventheldoneachthirdThursdayofMarch.Morethan6milliongradeschoolstudents(grades1-12)participateinthis75-minuteno-stakeschallenge,whichengagesstudentsinage-appropriatemath,funproblems,whichinmanypartsoftheworldconstitutethetypeofmaththoughtintheschoolsystem.RegistrationfortheeventisSeptemberthroughmid-Decemberfortheupcomingyear’schallengeonhttp://www.mathkangaroo.org.Theworldwideorganization’swebsitehttp://aksf.org(AssociationKangourousansFrontières)containsinterestinghistory,statisticsbycountry,etc.RaduCascavalhasbeenthecoordinatorofthiseffortatUCCS.Radugivesshout-outstoEmanuelitaMartinezandUCCSstudentvolunteersAmandaKissamandLouisSwanson,aswellastoMr.CurtisTurnerfromtheUCCSTeachProgram.Formoreinfoaboutthiscommunityeventorforvolunteeropportunities,pleasecontactDr.RaduCascaval(radu@uccs.edu).

Emanuelita Martinez & Radu Cascaval at the UCCS Math Kangaroo Event.

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UCCS MATH CENTER The Math Center, under the directorship of Jenny Dorrington, has seen over 19,000 sign-ins since January, which definitely keeps the staff on its toes. In addition to the usual business of tutoring, the Math Center was home to a few social events. In April, the second annual Casino Night gave students the chance to experience probability in action and have fun doing it. Students used the “Math Bucks” they had earned throughout the spring semester to play casino games and bid on prizes. This September, the Math Center and Math Department co-hosted the second annual Math Convergence event. It was another successful social and informational gathering in which students heard about Math department programs and learned about opportunities to become involved in Math Club, research, and conferences, while sharing food and socializing with faculty and other students. Forty-five students and eight faculty attended the event. Other popular events were the “What’s Your Sine?” Valentine’s Day celebration, at which students enjoyed food and crafts in the Math Center, and spent time working on mathematics in a relaxed environment. On March 14 (i.e., 3.14) "π-Day" treats were offered around campus (co-sponsored with Student Government and UCCSTeach). The “Math Isn’t Scary” Halloween event, finished off the year with food and candy for those not too scared to come to the Math Center.

What’s Your Sine? February, 2016

Casino Night, April, 2016

Math Convergence, September 2016

Our New Faculty Members

In early 2016 the UCCS Math Department was given the go-ahead to hire THREE full time Instructors. This decision by the UCCS administration was interpreted both as a vote of confidence in the ability of the department to deliver quality instruction, as well as an acknowledgment of the explosive growth in student demand for math courses which has occurred over the past few years.

Our three new Instructors are: Reece Adragna, Katherine Cliff, and Wojciech Kossek. The Newsletter sat down with each of them for a chat about math in particular, and life in general.

Reece Adragna was raised in the Pikes Peak region. He was homeschooled until he was a high school junior; he finished high school at Widefield HS. "Essentially, I learned math up to precalculus on my own." He then took precalculus as a junior, and calculus as a senior. Reece decided to attend UCCS, and initially enrolled as a Mechanical Engineering major. But after one semester of that, he decided that the teaching profession was more to his liking, and began the UCCS Teach program. After distinguishing himself as a math student and a student teacher (in part at Coronado HS), and earning his BA in Math in 2012, Reece spent a year teaching high school math at Fountain - Fort Carson HS. But the math bug overrode the teaching bug, and so Reece found himself back at UCCS in the MS Applied Math program. While taking grad level math classes, Reece also held a Graduate Teaching Fellowship, and so was teaching math classes for us at the same time. Fortunately for us, Reece earned his master's degree at just the right time to qualify him for an Instructorship. And so here we are.

Reece and his wife Kaylen met in 2009 (at a Sky Sox game!) Kaylen is also a teacher: she teaches Spanish, and coaches the cross country team, at Fountain - Fort Carson HS. Reece and Kaylen are both avid cyclists. (ed's notes: (1) riding to the top of Pikes Peak multiple times last summer clearly merits the adjective avid; R-rated two-word adjectives also come to mind … (2) finding out that he can ride the Cheyenne Canyon course in under 19 minutes provoked ed to indeed verbalize those R-rated adjectives during our sit-down chat with Reece … (3) ed will no longer describe himself as cyclist: instead …. wheel-turner?)

Reece Adragna, MS

Katherine Cliff grew up in Moline, Illinois. Her childhood passion was musical; indeed, Katherine went to University of Iowa on a piano scholarship! But she had to give up playing, so she returned closer to home to finish her undergrad studies at Illinois State. At the time, the choice was to either pursue a math degree or an English degree; but when she thought about all the essays she'd have to write for the latter, the former was her (default?) choice. (ed's note: funny how some things in life play out …) She wound up getting a BA in Mathematics, in addition to getting a license to teach middle and high school. Upon graduation, Katherine and her husband Michael decided to pack up and move "somewhere else"; they had visited Colorado previously, and decided Colorado Springs would be a really nice "somewhere else". Katherine chose to spend a few years working in an alternative high school in District 2. 'Alternative' meant that she was teaching math to students who had typically not had positive prior experience with math classes in particular, and school in general. But she really enjoyed working with that collection of students. She then spent two years teaching math at Harrison HS. While she generally enjoyed her high school teaching experiences, she was starting to feel somewhat drained in that environment, and decided to go back to school at UCCS to work towards an MS Applied Mathematics. During her two years in our program, Katherine not only taught classes for us as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, but also was in charge of the technology side of our MathOnline program. Fortunately for us, Katherine earned her master's degree at just the right time to qualify her for an Instructorship. And so here we are. Earlier this year, when the Powerball jackpot had reached unprecedented heights, the local Colorado Springs newspaper (the Gazette) contacted the UCCS math department to try to find someone who could discuss, in "layman's" terms, some of the probability ideas associated with the drawing. One thing led to another and Katherine wound up taking the call. Not only did that interview lead to an article in the Gazette, it led to Katherine being asked to write a related article, titled "What are the Odds?,” which appeared in the February/March 2016 edition of Girls' Angle Bulletin. In addition to teaching some of our calculus courses, Katherine is also involved with the UCCS Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) grant. Specifically, she is teaching a section of our precalculus course Math 1050 to a group of 27 students this semester. This particular section meets more hours per week than the typical Math 1050 section; the increased number of contact hours, together with additional resources (e.g., numerous PASSessions), is strongly linked to improved student success. Katherine and Michael enjoy the Colorado lifestyle. Michael works for a high tech

firm; he can work remotely from home. Their daughter Adeline just turned five years old, and has been absolutely rockin' her preschool. (ed's note: the apple doesn't fall very far…)

Katherine Cliff, MS

Wojciech Kossek's calculus book.

(Note the spelling Kosek on the cover … there's a story there, to

be told in next year's Newsletter.)

Wojciech Kossek grew up in Gliwice, Poland. He studied and very much enjoyed both mathematics and engineering as a student. While in high school, Wojciech (pronounced 'Voycheck') was twice a finalist in the prestigious Polish Mathematical Olympiad, in which he finished in the top 50 in the country. A chance connection between one of his teachers and a faculty member at North Dakota State University led to Wojciech receiving a letter from NDSU, inviting him to apply for their graduate program (in Electrical Engineering!). He did indeed apply to NDSU, but applied and was accepted to the graduate program in math, rather than EE. He earned his PhD at NDSU in 1996; his research focus was (and continues to be) in the area of measurable and topological dynamics, along with some work in combinatorics. Subsequently, Wojciech and his wife Iwona lived in South Dakota; Wojciech had a position at South Dakota State University (where he was on faculty for five years), and Iwona set up a practice as an internal medicine physician. In 2003 the Kosseks came to Colorado Springs, "just to visit some friends who lived here". They immediately fell in love with the Pikes Peak region, and, though neither had a job lined up here, they decided to simply pick up and move! (ed's note: quite the lure Pikes Peak can cast …) Iwona and Wojciech were able to find work relatively quickly. Wojciech spent four years teaching math at Colorado College, then a year at CSU-Pueblo, and then most recently eight years at Colorado Tech. While he was on faculty at Colorado College he wrote a book, Calculus for the Forgetful, which, as the cover picture here shows, is aimed at trying to get students to understand the big picture ideas of the subject. Although he had become a full Professor of Mathematics and Engineering at CTU, as well as served as a Lead Faculty for Mathematics, when the Instructor position opened up at UCCS, Wojciech decided it was time for a change. And so here we are.

Wojciech Kossek, PhD

Iwona and Wojciech have one child. Their daughter Magdalena ('Magda') is an Electrical and Computer Engineering major here at UCCS; she is also minoring in French and (of course?) in math. (ed's note, hopefully not a FERPA violation: Magda is currently a student in ed's 3130 class.) Wojciech is looking forward to continuing to work with UCCS students. He is interested in "casting a wide net", to find students who might be interested in becoming math majors. He will teach Differential Equations Math 3400 through MathOnline in Spring 2017. He is interested in working with both undergraduate and graduate students on any topics, which might be of interest to them. He always encourages students to "… try to be the best they can be in whatever they do." The Newsletter, on behalf of the entire department, welcomes our three new full-time Instructors to the fold!

Thank You to all the UCCS Math Department Lecturers in 2016

honored for outstanding teaching. • David Bakalyan • Thomas Braund • Casey Chalifour • Gaetan Delavignette • Francesco Demontis • Cynthia Doorack • Justin Garrish* • Sara Goldman, • Ron Haeckel • Luke Harmon* • Jewell Anne Hartman • Matt Jones • Jacob Karn*

• Ben Kinyanjui • Vira Kravets • Veronica Marth* • Alyssa Ortiz* • Krista Parnell • April Pierce • Mike Popovic* • Virginia Ramos • Ikuko Saito • Maple So* • Wendy Spratte • Rachel Wood

*Graduate Teaching Fellow

(In alphabetical order by FIRST name this year; again)

Around the Department

Barbara Prinari

Bob Carlson

Much of Barbara Prinari's time and energy in 2016 was spent dealing with her "adventure" as Faculty Assembly President. "Steep learning curve, but I always say I value knowledge, and I certainly have learned a lot, so it's like paying for knowledge with my time ... and thankfully I only a have a little over a year to go!" (ed's note: being FA President is a ridiculous amount of work.) Somehow, Barbara was still able to find the time to continue to be active in both teaching and research. She continued her involvement with the online initiative: in spring, she completed the course of study and requirements for the Online Facilitation Certificate Program sponsored by the UCCS Faculty Resource Center. In addition, in summer the online course on differential equations that she developed received the Quality Matters certification. In research, Barbara published four articles, and received an NSF award (her third since joining UCCS). She gave a number of invited research presentations, at venues including The 4th Conference on Nonlinear Waves: Theory and Applications (Beijing, China), and the American Mathematical Society Spring Central Sectional meeting (Fargo, ND). Barbara organized a special session on “Nonlinear Wave Equations and Applications” at the Fall Meeting of the Western Section of the AMS in Denver last October; a mini-symposium on “Novel Challenges on NLS equations” at the SIAM Nonlinear Waves Conference held in Philadelphia, PA, in August; and, joint with UCCS colleague Sarbarish Chakravarty, organized the 2nd “Colorado Nonlinear Day”, held in Colorado Springs on April 30 (with over 40 scientists participating from Colorado and neighboring states).

Bob Carlson continues to serve as chairman of the Mathematics Department. Now into Year Three of his service, " … I'm convinced that my increasingly gray hair is a consequence of the job." A big challenge is managing the growth of the Mathematics Department as the enrollment at UCCS grows. With increased numbers of students campus wide, the demand for mathematics classes grows too. The increasing demand for general education and engineering service courses has the department in a seemingly perpetual hiring mode. (Last year the department was fortunate to hire three outstanding new instructors: Reece Adragna, Katherine Cliff, and Wojciech Kossek. See interviews above.) When not occupied with teaching or administrative duties, Bob continued work on the second edition of his analysis text, A Concrete Introduction to Analysis. He is in the 'final' proofreading stage, and expects to wrap up the work during the 2016-17 winter break. The text should actually appear in print in about a year. On the subject of publication timelines, this past year Bob experienced two extrema related to the speed of professional publication. Recently, mathematicians and physicists have been making use of the arXiv, a preprint distribution service, to communicate their results quickly, before official publication. (ed's note: arxiv.org ) Bob posted a technical report one day, and received an email from a reader the very next day! At the other extreme, he had a different paper accepted by a journal after a yearlong review. Now that the paper is in the publication queue, the journal expects it to appear in print in about 15 months. So much for speedy communications in the digital age!

George Rus Greg Morrow

Gene Abrams

Greg Morrow continued in the role of Math Colloquium chair. The math colloquia are held every other week during the academic year, and offer opportunities for students and faculty alike to broaden their view of the mathematical scene. "Thanks to Emanuelita Martinez for all the incredible colloquium announcement posters!" (see http://www.uccs.edu/math/events/current-colloquium-series.html ) Greg taught the Intro to Analysis and Modern Analysis I sequence, and also Probability & Statistics (Spring, Summer, and Fall). He taught an independent study course in Linear Statistical Models, and served on Sujee Shin’s MSc final paper committee and on Matt Jones’ MS thesis committee. Greg participated in the AMS Sectional meeting at the University of Denver (DU) in the fall. Not long after that meeting, he presented a 50-minute talk in the Analysis Seminar at DU (Mei Yin, organizer) entitled “Large deviations for some integer valued statistics in gambler’s ruin.” The large deviations topic for this presentation continues a series of papers by Morrow on the gambler’s ruin model using the generating function method, with applications to analytic combinatorics.

George Rus kept busy during this past year, both professionally and personally. On the professional side, George was once again very active and diverse, teaching the Calculus sequence, as well as a couple of senior level courses. In the Spring, George was the academic advisor for two of his Mathematical Modeling students when they entered the "The Mathematical Contest in Modeling" hosted by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP). The team consisted of Casey Chalifour, Paul Pinchuk, and Dominique Brasee. George is very proud of their achievement. The team received the distinction of Honorable Mention, which is quite impressive. On a personal note, this summer, George and his family went on a weeklong trip to New Mexico, where, among other things, they went whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande. More importantly, George and his wife Gina's daughter Zara started first grade this fall. Zara enjoys school so much that she wants to become a teacher, so she can help her parents grade!

Gene Abrams had a busy but productive 2016. He helped organize the visits to Colorado Springs of a number of algebraists from throughout the world: Daniel Goncalves (Brazil, in March); Cristobal Gil Canto (Spain, March through May); Be'eri Greenfeld (Israel, in April); Jason Bell (Canada, in August); and Benjamin Steinberg (New York, in October). "It is both mathematically productive and personally satisfying to have so many researchers who want to come to Colorado Springs to work with members of our department." In addition to writing a few 'standard' research articles, Gene was happy and honored to be asked to write an article for the September 2016 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, in the "What Is?" series; What is a Leavitt path algebra? He continued his work with Sky Sox Math Youth Day. Not to be outdone by Ranga and Greg O., Gene too gave a talk at Bergmanfest in May (the conference organized by Zak). The UCCS contingent of algebraists definitely had a high profile presence at that conference!

James Parmenter

Greg Oman

Greg Oman had a very busy 2016. He had 5 papers appear and 6 papers accepted for publication, including one with undergraduate Ben Griffith. Greg and Ben were jointly awarded a College of Letters Arts and Science Faculty-Student Research Award. He gave several talks: a colloquium talk at Seattle University, a conference talk at the Math Association of America's summer MathFest (Columbus, OH), a conference talk at the 'Bergmanfest' conference (see Zak Mesyan's news items), and a seminar talk at Baylor University. On the teaching front, he was nervous to teach Math 2150 over the summer in five weeks, but was very pleasantly surprised by the interest and work ethic of his students. It was a tremendous success! In November he finished advising M.S. student Matt Jones on his thesis, A set-theoretic approach to obtaining infinity. "Matt did an excellent job, and it was very rewarding working with him."

During the Spring semester of 2016 James Parmenter taught a typical course load of Precalculus, the second semester of Calculus With Refresher Precalculus, and Calculus 1. However, during the Fall semester, James got to add a little variety to his résumé by teaching Discrete Mathematics (Math 2150) for the very first time. "While it has been a challenging course to teach, it has also been quite a lot of fun learning how to present this material." Outside of work, James did quite a bit of traveling in the first half of the year. During Spring Break he went to San Juan, Puerto Rico with his wife, and absolutely loved it! The weather was quite beautiful (and a welcome change from the cold March weather of Colorado Springs). He enjoyed exploring the city of Old San Juan, The El Yunque Rain Forest, and the amazing food and drinks that Puerto Rico had to offer. A short two months later James and Katy were off again, this time to New York City. This was a first for both Katy and James and they enjoyed Manhattan to the fullest. Dining at some amazing restaurants and seeing Hamilton on Broadway were just a couple of the many, many highlights of their trip. "We can’t wait to see where we travel to next!"

Kulumani Rangaswamy

Jenny Dorrington

Meredith Casey

This year was a rather typical one for Jenny Dorrington. In addition to her duties as Math Center director, Jenny taught a few classes, including Math 5510-Topology, which was, as always, a great experience. She collaborated with Meredith Casey and Radu Cascaval to redesign the department’s geometry offerings, creating a new, junior-level Introduction to Geometry class for UCCS Teach students. She is currently teaching it for the first time in this form to 25 students, and is already making notes about how to make it a better class next year. Jenny taught a new GPS (Gateway Program Seminar) class this fall with Sean Dean and Sandy Ho (Math Center Program Coordinator, and Interim Director of the Languages and Social Sciences Center, resp.). The class focused on learning theory and cognition, helping the students learn how to learn. The class went very well, and based on students’ feedback, it really did help them with their other classes this semester. Sean and Jenny are currently running a series of workshops for UCCS Teach students, helping them prepare for the Math Praxis exam. The plan is to offer the workshop series twice each year, before the students typically take the exam. Jenny also continues working with Shannon Michaux and Katherine Cliff on the Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) grant, coordinating assessment for the redesigned sections of Math 1040 and Math 1050. The biggest personal news of the year was the arrival of her new grandson in October. She is also looking forward to visiting Costa Rica over the winter break.

During the 2016 year Professor Emeritus Kulumani Rangaswamy continued his research work on Leavitt path algebras and on infinite abelian groups; this work resulted in the publication/completion of a few research papers on these topics. In May he gave a talk at the “Bergmanfest” conference in Columbus, Ohio. In September, he visited Würzburg, Germany for research collaboration with Otto Mutzbauer, and then attended an algebra conference at Padova, Italy. He also took this opportunity to visit Venice and, among other things, took a gondola ride in the canals of that venerable city. During the following month, he gave a colloquium talk at Saint Louis University (St. Louis, MO). In November, he gave an invited talk at an international algebra conference at the Aligarh Muslim University, India and visited the Taj Mahal. "On the whole, the 2016 year was reasonably productive, and it was academically stimulating due in part to the visits of a number of researchers to our department."

Meredith Casey taught a wide range of calculus classes (I, II, III, and Business); Calculus II was a first-time experience for her. Meredith finished developing the online version of the Business Calculus Math 1120 course, which ran in the spring and summer. She is currently in the process of slightly revamping the course based on that experience, and is looking to move toward an even more interactive model this coming year. Meredith also put on her "student hat" this year, by completing two graduate courses in systems engineering at UCCS. "These engineering courses turned out to give me many new insights and applications for the business calc course." Most importantly, on August 18th Meredith and her husband welcomed the birth of their daughter Jocelyn!

Oksana Bihun started her 2016 departmental service by proctoring graduate exams. This was followed by the grand undertaking of chairing the (very successful) Search Committee for hiring three new Instructors (welcome again to Reece, Katherine and Wojciech!). Oksana completed several invited research visits in the summer. During her visit to the University of Leipzig, Germany, she stepped into St. Thomas church famous for having Johann Sebastian Bach as a music director. Bihun spent a few minutes at Bach’s grave. It was delightful to hear, unexpectedly, Bach’s music performed on the old organ once played by him. (Do you know that Bach’s compositions feature group structures? ) A paper on which Bihun worked in Leipzig is about Krall orthogonal polynomials that are eigenfunctions of linear differential operators of order greater than two. Her visit to the “La Sapeinza” University of Rome resulted in another paper that features new solvable discrete-time dynamical systems. This work applies the ideas exploited in three other of Bihun’s papers that were published in 2016 to the case of discrete-time dynamical systems. Together with Clark Mourning, a UCCS undergraduate student, Dr. Bihun is exploring a generalization of her work on Krall polynomials to the case of other nonclassical orthogonal polynomials. This project is supported by a grant from the UCCS Committee on Research and Creative Work (CRCW), awarded in Spring 2016. Oksana continued to explore Colorado in 2016, by visiting Fort Collins and Denver to give invited talks. She also traveled to Fargo, ND, as the organizer of the special AMS session “Integrable Dynamical Systems and Special Functions”. Bihun enjoyed teaching Calculus III and Intro to Differential Equations and is looking forward to teaching Math Modeling, as well as Differential Equations, in the Spring.

Oksana Bihun

MathconceptsshowupforHalloweenatDr.Bihun'sIntro

toDifferentialEquationsclass,featured,fromlefttoright,byMagdalenaKossek(logarithmicscale),LauraHelmreich(pi),Nathan

Chancellor(sphere),OksanaBihun(amathteacherdoes

notneedaHalloweencostume,scaryenough!)andBradleyHuber(identitythiefwhousestrigidentities).

Radu Cascaval

Peter Braza Peter Braza, Dean of the UCCS College of Letters Arts and Sciences, is a mathematician by training and a member of our department. "As dean, I am a fan of all of the good work the faculty do for our students and am an appreciator of all the excellent research the faculty produce – Impressive! As a member of the Department, I echo both sentiments above; I’m proud to have such dedicated colleagues and plan on getting back in the classroom – Soon!" Peter is continuing his research program as well: the mathematics involved in some results on a question involving a damped pendulum is finished, and the subsequent article is in preparation.

RaduCascavalcancall2016theyearofSpaceInitiation.HebecameSpaceFoundationTeacherLiaisoninJanuary,andsincethenhasembarkedonacrusadetobringnewopportunitiesrelatedtospacetoourstudentsandourcommunity.HeembarkedonaprojectsponsoredbySpaceX,tohelpdesignandbuildanewmodeoftransportationonEarth,calledtheHyperloop,advisinganinitialteamof15enthusiasticUCCSandUSAFAstudentsin2015-2016,followedbyanexpandedteam(40+)studentsin2016-2017."ThetripwemadetotheSpaceXDesignWeekendatTexasA&MinJanuarywasamazing."InSpring,Raduoversawthebuildingofasmallscaleprototype(vehiclehoveringinatube)whichisnowhousedintheEngineeringbuilding,fordemoandfurtherdevelopment.Hetookalongagroupof30collegeandhighschoolstudentstothe32ndSpaceSymposiumheldatBroadmoorinApril.HeparticipatedintheSustainnovateConferenceinApril,theCoolScienceCarnivalinOctober,andafewothercampusoutreachevents.Themostsurprisingandrewardingaspectofthis

projecthasbeentheinteractionwiththepublicatlarge,kidsandadultsalike,seeingtheexcitementthatthisnewgreentechnologycangenerate.Ontheresearchside,hecompletedalongstandingprojectinvolvingoptimizationofflowsinnetworksandisreadytotakethisresearchtoanewlevel.HeisalsofosteringnewcollaborationswithUSAFAfaculty.ThisFallhehasbeenteachingforthefirsttimeatUCCSanewPhDcourse,ScientificComputationI,inasequenceoftwocoursesaspartofthenewemphasisonComputationinthePhDinAppliedSciences. UCCS Hyperloop 1st Floor ENG

Yu Zhang

Sarbarish Chakravarty Shannon Michaux

In addition to teaching Differential Equations (both undergrad and grad levels) and serving as the Math Department Graduate Committee chairman, Sarbarish Chakravarty continued to work with MS Applied Math graduate student Tommy McDowell on the solitary wave solutions of the KP equation. He completed two papers with Tommy and Michelle Osborne (undergraduate student from 2015). Tommy received a College of Letters Arts and Sciences student research scholarship in summer 2016 to work on this project. During last winter break Sarby visited India, and gave a colloquium talk at Bose Institute, Kolkata. By mistake, he missed his return flight to the U.S. by a day, but (after much convincing at the Hong Kong airport) still managed to be back on time to teach on the first day of Spring Semester UCCS classes. Sarby is currently advising a new undergraduate student, Tristan Neighbors, who was recently a recipient of a Student-Faculty research award from the LAS college. In October, Sarby and his students attended the AMS sectional meeting at Denver where Sarby gave a talk. Sarby also started a joint project with Oksana Bihun from Spring 2016; they are currently preparing to submit a paper based on their work so far.

This year was Shannon Michaux’s twentieth year teaching for the UCCS Math Department. During this academic year she’s continued her work as part of a US Department of Education "Strengthening Institutions Program" grant to investigate methods of increasing students’ success and understanding in College Algebra. Her favorite part of her job remains the time she spends working with students in the classroom to help them learn the concepts of math.

2016 was another full year for Yu Zhang. He continued his research, which is focused on percolation, and on random walks. Yu authored two papers regarding free energy and maximum flows on a lattice; the journal Probability Theory and Related Fields has accepted the second paper for review. He also presented one of his results on random walks at the American Mathematical Society Sectional meeting in Denver in October. Zhang is teaching probability and statistics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in 2016. In addition, he guided two graduate students on their master theses.

Zak Mesyan

Oman’s Offerings (Here are the Problems, written by Greg

Oman, which appeared in various national refereed publications

during 2016)

Try your hand at these!!

(1) (with grad student Luke Harmon) What is the smallest cardinality of a commutative ring R (not assumed to have 1) with exactly 5 ideals? Does the answer change if one assumes the existence of an identity?

(2) Find all commutative Artinian rings R for which 1 and -1 are the only units of R.

This year Zak Mesyan published four articles. He took the first sabbatical of his career this Fall, during which he traveled to two conferences, completed a new paper, and hosted his frequent collaborator James Mitchell, from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). Dr. Mitchell’s month-long visit resulted in a new project, which will likely produce a paper by next year. Zak co-organized a ring theory conference, dedicated to his Ph.D. advisor, George Bergman, which took place in Columbus, Ohio this May. (ed's note: this conference's unofficial title was Bergmanfest.) The conference was attended by over 60 mathematicians from around the world, and was funded by Zak’s first NSF grant. This is Zak's second year as the chair of the undergraduate committee. During that time the committee completed a proposal to totally restructure the department’s bachelor’s program. The proposal, which was approved by the department in the Spring, has now been fully implemented. On a more personal note, this year Zak increased the number of US states he’s visited to 31, after he and his wife Maria went to Utah and Maine. As part of their quest to become more involved with winter activities, Zak and Maria went snow-tubing and snowmobile-riding for the first time this year.

Take a Coffee Break!

In August 2016, the UCCS Math Center starting offering FREE coffee. Students and professors are encouraged to stop by for the coffee and stay for the Math. The coffee station is open and available to students and faculty during regular Math Center hours.

In Memoriam: Keith L. Phillips

Professor Keith Phillips was a member of the UCCS Department of Mathematics from 1990 until 2007. Keith was the Ph.D. advisor (at New Mexico State University) of another former member of the department, Professor Emeritus Jim Daly. Keith Phillips died this past March. We share here a portion of an obituary of our friend and colleague that appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera.

Jim Daly and Keith Phillips

Keith L. Phillips of Boulder died on March 8, 2016 at New Dawn Assisted Living for the Memory Impaired in Aurora, Colorado. He was 78. Keith was born June 11, 1937 in Broken Bow Nebraska, the son of Albert “Bud” and Helen Hamilton Phillips. When the family moved to Boulder in 1949, Keith attended Uni Hill Junior High School and Boulder High School, where he made life-long friends and developed a profound love of mathematics and talent for basketball. His Boulder summers were spent exploring the mountains, working at Owens on The Hill, moving stone for the new Boulder Reservoir, and helping to build the “Joslins Building” downtown. Keith went on to study mathematics at CU Boulder (BS ’59, MS ’61). He married his first wife, Evonne Barrett, in 1961, after which they moved to Seattle where Keith would pursue his doctoral studies at University of Washington (PhD ’64.)

Keith began his career as Associate Professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. Three years later, the family moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Keith spent the majority of his career as Professor of Mathematics at New Mexico State University, teaching and researching in his areas of expertise: harmonic analysis and image processing. During his tenure at NMSU, Keith directed 11 PhD students and held various consulting positions, including at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and White Sands Missile Range. Keith was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and recipient of the prestigious Lester R. Ford award for excellence in mathematical exposition. He was equally proud of his athletic accomplishments. Although he regretted giving up college basketball in favor of math, he made up for it by becoming a fierce competitor on the handball court in Las Cruces.

In Memoriam: Keith L. Phillips

Upon retirement from NMSU, Keith returned to Boulder where he met his second wife, Sharon Hagan, and looked after his beloved parents. In 1990, he joined the CU faculty in Colorado Springs where he continued to teach until his second retirement in 2007. Keith continued to find joy doing pure math in his study, surrounded by pillars of books, a giant white board, and mementos of a long and rewarding career. In addition to mathematics, Keith savored a life of outdoor adventure and lived to tell about many a misadventure. He most cherished ski trips and camping with his children, hikes in Eldorado canyon with Sharon and their dog, winter expeditions over mountain passes, sounds of children playing, and the call of the great composers of classical music. Keith had both an eye and ear for beauty, whether it be an elegant mathematical solution or a stirring performance of choral music. Keith will be most remembered for his endearing laugh, his wholehearted embrace of diversity and his ability to see the best in people. Welcoming guests into his home, for any length of stay, was surely his hallmark. Family and friends came first.

There were two UCCS Math Department Annual Distinguished Lectures during Calendar Year 2016. Dr. Mette Olufsen, and Dr. James Mitchell.

Math Department Distinguished Lecture Series

Math Department Special Lecture: On February 4, Dr. Mette S. Olufsen delivered a lecture titled "Patient Specific Modeling of Cardiovascular system Dynamics". The lecture was held in the 3rd Floor Library Apse, and was attended by more than 60 people. Dr. Olufsen is Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at North Carolina State University. She holds a PhD in applied mathematics and a MS in mathematics and computer science from Roskilde University in Denmark. Her primary research experience is in the field of biomathematics. As a mathematical biologist, she specializes in modeling of physiological systems and, in particular, modeling fluid

Dr. Mette S. Olufsen

dynamics of arterial blood flow and understanding cardiovascular regulation and the interaction with the inflammatory system. Other ingredients of her research include parameter estimation, parameter identifiability, optimization model based data-analysis. She is part of the Biomathematics Graduate Program at NCSU, which offers MS and PhD in a wide range of research areas, including physiology, ecology, evolution, infectious disease, developmental biology, toxicology and pharmacology. When not at NCSU, Dr. Olufsen enjoys riding her bike, or spending endless hours going to gymnastics competitions with her daughter Tina, which is one of the reasons she visited Colorado Springs in 2016.

Math Department Annual Distinguished Lecture The2016MathDepartmentDistinguishedLecturewasdeliveredonOctober20,2016byDr.JamesMitchell,whoisaReaderinPureMathematicsattheUniversityofStAndrewsinScotland.ThetitleofDr.Mitchell'stalkwas:"MathematicalProblemsthatCannotBeSolved".Dr.Mitchell’stalk,whichwasattendedbyover50people,wasdevotedtothequestionofwhethereveryprobleminmathematicscanberesolvedbymeansofsomemechanicalmethod.Heexplainedpreciselywhat“mechanicalmethod”or“algorithm”meansinthiscontext,anddiscussedthehistoricalperspectives

onthisquestionamongmathematicians,beforegivingexamplesofundecidableproblems,i.e.,onesforwhichitisimpossibletoconstructanalgorithmsthatalwaysleadstoasolution.ThetalktouchedonTuringmachines,theaxiomsofsettheory,andsomerecentresearch.Dr.MitchellreceivedhisPh.D.fromtheUniversityofStAndrewsin2002,andhecompletedpostdoctoraltrainingattheUniversityofLisbon(Portugal)andtheUniversityofLouisville(Kentucky),beforereturningtoScotland.Hehaspublishedmorethan50researcharticles,andhaswrittenseveralcomputerprogramsforperformingcomputationsinabstractalgebra.

From James Mitchell's talk: Hilbert’s

the Second Congress of in 1900, Hilbert posed 23 The 10th problem was: for any

“a process is sought by which can be in a number of operations, the equation is solvable in

In 1928, Hilbert posed the more general Is there a universal procedure for determining the truth falsity of any

David Hilbert