If you’ve been to campus recently, you’ve probably noticed the new building going up on the old Riddick Stadium site. It will be the home of the Mathematics and Statistics Departments. The building will feature state-of-the-art classrooms and other facilities. After 47 years in Harrelson Hall, we are looking forward to moving in Spring 2009.

James Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute, honored the Department this year with the first privately endowed distinguished professorship in our history. The chair will be named for Professor Emeritus LeRoy B. Martin, Jr.

In Spring 2008 the Department had its ten-year review by a team of prominent mathematicians from other universities. It was a good opportunity for us to reflect on what we have been doing and to plan for the future. The review team concluded that our Department is “a nationally and internationally visible jewel.”

The reviewers encouraged us to continue our initiatives to develop interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate programs. Our interdisciplinary PhD is now a concentration, and should soon be a full degree program. An interdisciplinary BS and a new general BA in math are both in the planning stages.

Summer 2008 was the second for our NSF-funded Institute for Mathematics at NC State (IM @ State). This program features research opportunities for incoming graduate students, and research and training programs for students from underrepresented groups and their mentors.

Summer 2008 was also the fifth for our Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program (REU). With 40 students participating from colleges and universities across the country, ours is by far the largest math REU in the nation. These programs are a great way to introduce bright undergraduates to NC State, and several have decided to do their graduate work here.

Our faculty is involved in a number of exciting initiatives. The NIH-funded Center for Quantitative Sciences in Biomedicine includes Mathematics, Statistics, and other NC State faculty, along with faculty from other institutions. The NSF-funded Research Training Group on Mathematics of Materials is in its second year, and has introduced new courses and training opportunities at several levels. CRSC and SAMSI continue to flourish with leadership from our faculty.

Mathematics was featured this year at the PAMS Alumni and Friends Weekend. Donald Saari, a mathematician at the University of California at Irvine, gave a fascinating keynote address [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fhcl2CAk1s ]on the mathematics of voting. For the first time, we hosted a brunch for Mathematics Department alumni, and were delighted to see so many of you there. A poster display presented six student research projects. You can see photos from the brunch the new Mathematics Department alumni web page
[ http://www.math.ncsu.edu/alumni.php ], where you will also find short talks by Ralph Smith on the Department’s achievements, and by Michael Shearer on plans for the future.

We also held alumni-and-friends receptions at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego in January 2008, at the SIAM national meeting in San Diego in July 2008, and at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington in January 2009. We plan to make these receptions annual events at the national meetings.

Four new faculty members joined the Department in 2008. Patricia Hersh, whose specialty is algebraic and topological combinatorics, was previously a faculty member at Indiana University. Seth Sullivant, whose area is algebraic biology, joined us after three years as a Junior Fellow at Harvard. Alina Duca and Molly Fenn are our two new Teaching Assistant Professors, a new type of position for the department. Their charge is to focus on innovation in the Department’s teaching. Alina Duca was a visiting faculty member at Vassar College, and Molly Fenn just finished her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts. We also hired Mark Hoefer, an applied mathematician, who was a postdoc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. He also received an NSF fellowship to spend a year at Columbia University, so he will join us in Fall 2009.

Our faculty received several awards this year. Professor Emeritus LeRoy B. Martin, Jr. was honored with the nineteenth PAMS Distinguished Alumni Award. The NC State Alumni Association awarded H. Thomas Banks the Association's 2008 Outstanding Research Award, and named Bob Martin an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor for 2008-2010. In addition, Marilyn McCollum was named an NC State Outstanding Teacher for 2007-2008, and became a member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers. Finally, Demetrio Labate won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, NSF's most prestigious award for junior faculty.

Two of our faculty, Robert Hartwig and Chuck Siewert, completed their phased retirement this year, and Marilyn McCollum decided to retire in January 2009. They have been outstanding members of our department for many years and will be missed. In addition, Ron Fulp started phased
retirement.

Looking forward, we will host a regional American Mathematics Society conference April 4-5. The meeting will include the annual AMS public Einstein Lecture on April 4. Michael S. Waterman from the University of Southern California will speak on Reading DNA sequences: twenty-first century technology with eighteenth-century mathematics.

We hope to see you in April in Raleigh. All the best for 2009!

Back to January 2009 Newsletter