2002 Personal News

• Marcelo Aguiar, organizer of AMS meeting in Montréal, May 3-5, 2002, Special Session on "Combinatorial Hopf Algebras", together with Christophe Reutenauer and François Bergeron.
  Judge of student presentations in the Fifth Annual Student Research Week, April 2002.

• G. Donald Allen web site was referenced by the International Center for Scientific Research, December 17, 2002.
  Appointed as a member of the Academy for Educator Development, a part of the Regents' Initiative for Excellence in Education, January 7, 2002.

• Goong Chen was selected as an NRC/NAS Senior Research Associate semi-finalist for residency at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, 2002.

• Rostislav I. Grigorchuk was awarded best paper in 2002 by the Russian Academy of Science and MAIK Publishing.

• Darald J. Hartfiel received the Dean's Roundtable Outstanding Teaching Award, College of Education, 2002.

• Doug Hensley assumed the full range of duties as editor of the problems section of the Am. Math. Monthly.

• William Johnson, Weston Visiting Professor, Weizmann Institute of Science, January-June, 2002.

• Tom Kiffe, organizer of the Stochastic Modeling Workshops conducted at the Science Academy of South Texas, Weslaco, TX, July 30-Aug 3, 2002.

• Peter Kuchment, organizer of the Section on Spectral Theory and Wave Propagation at the 2002 UAB International Conference on Differential Equations and Mathematical Physics, Birmingham, Alabama, March 26-30, 2002.
  Organizer of the Joint Summer Research Conference in the Mathematical Sciences "Waves in Periodic and Random Media," Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, June 22-June 28, 2002.

• David Larson organized a Special Session on "Wavelets and Frames" in IWOTA-2002, Blacksburg, VA, August 2002.
  Editorial Committee, International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics (a new journal), January 2002.
  Organized a "Concentration Week on Wavelets, Frames and Operator Theory" at Texas A&M, July 2002, part of our annual summer Linear Analysis and Probability Workshop. There were over 30 participants from 7 countries.

• Paulo Lima-Filho organized (jointly with Hal Schenck and Maurice Rojas) a CBMS Conference "Solving systems of polynomials equations," May 2002.

• Carlton J. Maxson, Visiting Professor, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, January-July 2002.

• Michael Pilant had one of 4 projects to be featured in the Thomson Corporation Annual Report for 2002.
  Science Bowl - Volunteer Appreciation, 2002.

• Gilles Pisier was elected membership to Paris Academy of Science, November 2002.
  Organizer (with S. Szarek) of a one week conference on noncommutative Banach spaces at the PIMS, Vancouver, Canada, August 2002.

• J. Maurice Rojas, co-organizer (with Paulo Lima-Filho and Hal Schenck), CBMS Lecture Series at Texas A&M University on Polynomial System Solving, presented by Bernd Sturmfels, May 20-24, 2002.
  Co-organized (with post-docs Leah Gold and Kathryn Nyman) the Algebra & Combinatorics Seminar, Fall 2002.

• Hal Schenck co-organizer (with Paulo Lima-Filho and Maurice Rojas), CBMS Lecture Series at Texas A&M University on Polynomial System Solving, presented by Bernd Sturmfels, May 20-24, 2002.
  Recipient of the Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics Leadership Award, 2002.

• Jane Schielack was awarded the Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics Leadership Award, 2002.

• Vince Schielack, 2002 Fellow of the Texas Academy of Science.

• Thomas Schlumprecht, University Fellow, ($100,000, period: 2001 - 2006).

• Jay Walton organized and mentored a departmental undergraduate student team that competed with an honorable mention in the 2002 COMAP Interdisciplinary Contest in Mathematical Modeling.

• Catherine Yan, organizer (co-organizers N. Bread, J. Kung, and J. McCammond) for the CombinaTexas Conference, 2002.

Grants/Contracts Awarded:

• Goong Chen, Co-PI, TAMU Telecommunication Initiative (TITF), "Resilient quantum computing," $175,000, September 1, 2002 to August 31, 2005.

• Grants awarded by the National Science Foundation:

  Guy Battle, PI, "Osiris wavelets and quantum entanglement," DMS-0204663, $49,999, July 1, 2002 to June 20, 2005.

  Huai-Dong Cao, PI, "On the Kaehler-Ricci flow and related problems," DMS-0206847, $107,030, June 15, 2002 to May 31, 2005.

  Andrew Comech, PI, "Harmonic analysis and nonlinear Hamiltonian equations," DMS-0200880/0434698/0621257, $68,000, June 2002 to January 2007.

  Richard Ewing, PI, (Co-PIs, R.D. Lazarov and Y. Efendiev) "Collaborative Research: ITR/AP-predictive contaminant tracking using dynamic data driven application simulation (DDDAS) techniques," DMS-0218229, $159,990, September 15, 2002 to August 31, 2005.

  William Johnson, PI, (Co-PI, Gilles Pisier), "Geometry of Banach spaces and operator spaces," DMS-0200690, $427,215, June 1, 2002 to May 31, 2005.

  David Larson, PI, "FRG: Collaborative Research: Focused research on wavelets, frames, and operator theory," DMS-0139386, $124,003, July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2005.

  Paulo Lima-Filho, PI, (Co-PIs, H.K. Schenck and J.M. Rojas), "NSF/CBMS Regional Conference in the mathematical sciences - solving polynomial equations," DMS-0122220, $27,492, June 1, 2002 to November 30, 2002.

  Alexei Poltoratski, PI, "Boundary behavior of analytic functions," DMS-0200699, $90,000, August 1, 2002 to July 31, 2005.

  J. Maurice Rojas, PI, "Robust output sensitive algorithms for subanalytic geometry," DMS-0211458, $98,800, September 1, 2002 to August 31, 2005.

  Joseph D. Ward, PI, (Co-PI, Francis Narcowich), "New directions in scattered data analysis via radial and related basis functions with applications," DMS-0204449, $208,184, August 1, 2002 to July 31, 2005.

  Eric Weber, PI, "Wavelets, frames and group representations," DMS-0200756, $70,460, July 1, 2002 to May 31, 2003.

Putnam Results

• Department of Mathematics results are in for the December 2002 Wm Lowell Putnam mathematical competition. Our team of Matthew Mendicino, Ryan Pai, and Armando Solar placed 19th among teams competing. Individually, Mendicino ranked in the top 100 and Pai and Solar in the top 500. Three other competitors got plus scores and placed reasonably well individually. This year's results continue a tradition of very fine performances by our Putnam team, which has been coached for many years by Doug Hensley. Congratulations to Doug and his team for their fine performance.

Fall 2002 award recipients for the Department of Mathematics

• Outstanding Staff

  Cheryl Williams

• Outstanding Service

  Don Allen

  Doug Hensley

• Outstanding Teaching

  Paulo Lima-Filho

  Marcia Drost