2000 Personal News

• G.R. Blakley was awarded Degree of Doctor of the University, honoris causa, Queensland University of Technology , Brisbane, Q, Australia, February 2001.

• Huai-Dong Cao, co-organizer (with Jon Pitts), Texas Geometry and Topology Conference, November 2001.

• Goong Chen, Invited Professor for three weeks in July 2001 at the National Center for Theoretical Science, Hsinchu, Taiwan, with airfare and salary paid by the host.
  Organizer of two invited technical sessions for the 31st Winter Symposium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics, Snowbird, Utah, January 2001.
  Associate Editor for the J. Math. Anal. Appl. (JMAA), beginning October 1, 2001.
  On the Editorial Board, Electronic J. on Math & Phys. Sci. (EJMAPS, a new journal), beginning December 1, 2001.

• David Dobson, young researcher fellowship of Sixth U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics, August 2001.

• Doug Hensley, since April 2001 I have been covering part of the duties of the editor of the problems section of the American Math. Monthly.
  In July of 2001 I served as one of the coordinators (read, graders) at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Washington, D.C.

• Tom Kiffe, organizer of the Stochastic Modeling Workshop conducted at the Science Academy of South Texas, Weslaco, TX, July 30-Aug 3, 2001.

• Peter Kuchment, organizer 11th Midwest Geometry Conference, Wichita State Univ., Kansas, April 2001.
  Organizer, for a Focus group discussion, AMS Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 2001.

• Carlton Maxson was the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award, College of Education, Texas A\&M University, 2001.

• Gilles Pisier was just awarded the "Stefan Banach Medal" in Poland. This was previously awarded to only two non-polish mathematicians, namely J. Lindenstrauss and F. Hirzebruch.

• Emil Straube has been appointed Associate Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and its Applications.

• Catherine Yan gave birth to a healthy baby girl Jessica Peng (YuQing) on September 1, 2001 at the College Station Medical Center, she weighed in at 5 lbs 13 oz, 19 in (48 cm).

• The Department of Mathematics will be hosting a CBMS Conference in Spring 2002. Title: Solving Polynomials Equations. The lecturer will be Professor Bernd Sturmfels, UC Berkeley. The lectures will be May 20-24. The organizers are Drs. Lima-Filho, Rojas, and Schenck.
  These conferences are NSF funded and awarded on a competitive basis, and partially supported by the Department of Mathematics and Texas A&M University. There will be a week-long series of pre-conference lectures for graduate students and non-specialists. Dates and times to be announced later.

Putnam Results

• This year's A&M Putnam team scored very well in the 61st William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition held in December, 2000. Our team place 18th out of 434 teams. Our team consisted of the following individuals: Nick Neumann, Cody Patterson, Scott Armstrong, Armando Solar, Kelli Carlson, Chris Tysor, Peter Rucker, Roel Morales, Doddamet Sandesh, and Crystal Hoyt and coached by Professor Doug Hensley.
  Superb individual performances were turned in by Cody Patterson (ranked about 96 out of 2818 contestants), Scott Armstrong (ranked about 354), Nick Neumann (ranked about 422) and Armando Solar (ranked 560).

Grants/Contracts Awarded

• Goong Chen, Co-PI, DARPA Grant: "Spin-Based Lattice-Gas Quantum Computers in Solids Using Optical Addressing," $2,500,000, September 1, 2001 to August 31, 2005.

• Grants awarded by the National Science Foundation:

  Harold P. Boas, PI, (Co-PI Emil Straube) "Research in several complex variables," DMS-0100517, $255,000, June 1, 2001 to May 31, 2005.

  Ronald G. Douglas, PI, "US-India Cooperative Research: Geometric invariants for quotient modules," DMS-0097044, $20,000, April 1, 2001 to March 31, 2005.

  David Goodman , PI, "The Second International Workshop on Oxide Surfaces (IWOX-2); Taos, New Mexico; January 15-19, 2001," DMS-0097054,, $10,000, January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001.

  Edward Letzter, PI, "Noncommutative algebras," DMS-0196236, $74,812, January 2, 2001 to May 31, 2002.

  Jonathan P. McCammond, PI, "Collaborative Research: The role of curvature in combinatorics," DMS-0101506, $269,979, August 1, 2001 to March 31, 2004.

Fall 2001 award recipients for the Department of Mathematics

• Outstanding Service

  Mike Stecher

  Thomas Schlumprecht

• Outstanding Teaching

  Michael Pilant

  Janice Epstein