Week of August 4, 2008 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
D'Alessandro awarded NSF grant
The National Science Foundation has awarded Domenico D'Alessandro $246,109 for a 3-year project entitled, Control Theory of Quantum Walks on Graphs and Its Applicatioins to Quantum Algorithms.
D'Alessandro writes that a significant impact of this project is the synergy it will create
among the physics, the control and the computer science
communities. The strong interdisciplinary nature of the proposed
research will require communication among people from different
areas. Moreover this study has strong educational value. It combines ideas from
different fields in the analysis of a class of systems which is
relatively simple, and therefore approachable with analytic tools,
but at the same time of great importance in many different
applications. Graduate and undergraduate students will be directly
involved in the planned research and will benefit from the
interaction with a culturally diverse scientific environment.
Elvis helps math alum snag writing award
When a dog (in this case a dog named Elvis who lives with alum Timothy L. Pennings '87 PhD, major professor Justin Peters) is in the water and a ball is thrown downshore, it must choose to swim directly to the ball or first swim to shore. The mathematical analysis of this problem leads to the computation of bifurcation points at which the optimal strategy changes.
The expository article Pennings and colleague Roland Minton co-authored about their observations of Elvis' responses received the George Polya Award on Friday at MathFest 2008 for their article, Do Dogs Know Bifurcations? that appeared in the College Mathematics Journal (vol. 38, no 5, November 2007, pp.356-361).
MAA's biographical notes tell us that Pennings, currently a professor of mathematics at Hope College in Holland, MI, enjoys the philosophical side of mathematics and writes papers that dig into the rich soil at the confluence of mathematics, philosophy, theology and cosmology.
Congratulations, graduates
We have several graduate students receiving their MS, MSM or PhD degrees at the Summer 2008 graduation ceremony on Saturday, August 9 at 9:30 a.m. at Hilton Coliseum.
Math & Applied Math graduates are:
Haseena Ahmed, PhD (Liu)
Jose Ayala Hoffmann, MS (Kliemann)
Gargi Bhattacharyya, PhD (Song)
Mehmet Dagli, PhD (D’Alessandro & Smith)
Mihaela Cristina Drignei, PhD (Sacks)
Jangwoon Lee, PhD (Hou)
Jun-Koo Park, MS (Wu)
Jaemin Shin, PhD (Sacks)
Ying Xu, PhD (Luecke)
MSM graduate is:
Rob Reynolds, MSM (Thompson & Hentzel)
Grade submission deadline
Final summer grades are due online Tuesday, August 12 at 2:15 p.m. This deadline WILL NOT be extended. Remember to submit grades as well for your 490's, 499's, 599's and 699's.
Transitions
Ghanshyam Bhatt (PhD, Keinert, 2004) has been hired as an Assistant Professor at Tennessee State University in Nashville starting Fall 2008.
Transitions is a new feature in Weekly Reader where announcements regarding life transitions, i.e., family, job, etc. of those associated with the Department may be published at the request of the individual. Send submissions to tuttle@iastate.edu
