A biweekly VIGRE seminar was held with participation from
faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and
undergraduate students. Seminar activities included (1) informal
sessions with people from outside the mathematics department
(astronomy, medical informatics, computer sciences, ... ) who are
users of mathematics, (2) short talks (3 to a session) by VIGRE
participants on their fields of interest, (3) panel discussions on
the use of technology in the classroom, the future of mathematical
instruction (using as a basis an article of Don Lewis - former
Director of the Math Sciences Division at NSF - that appeared in
the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, ... . This
seminar is being continued in 2000-01.
A new Applied Mathematics Consulting Modeling Course was
offered in 1999-2000 by VIGRE PI Paul Milewski and VIGRE
Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Raymond. The course, attended by
mathematics undergraduates, and graduate students from mathematics
and other disciplines, covered several modeling areas: population
dynamics, options pricing, diffusion processes and water waves.
Then, the PI invited researchers in the Life Sciences to present
data and problems for which they believed were amenable to
mathematical modeling. The class then had to sort through the
research (with the collaboration of the organizers and the
researchers presenting the problem) to arrive at well posed
questions for modeling. Some of the projects were extremely
successful, including a collaboration between a Mathematics
graduate student Meta Voelker, Christopher Raymond and Ralph
Albrecht (cell biologist) on models to predict immunogold staining
of cells and resulting in a grant proposal to NIH.
Faculty member James Propp initiated the Spatial Systems
Laboratory
SSL which actively engages undergraduates in computer
experimentation, formulation and testing of conjectures, and
proving theorems. This activity is being continued by faculty
member David
Griffeath
in 2000-01.
A departmental committee has begun a review of the
undergraduate curriculum; VIGRE PI Richard Brualdi will be joining
this committee in 2000-01.
A new undergraduate course on Cryptography was offered by VIGRE
PI Eric Bach. It is now part of the mathematics/computer
science/electrical & computer engineering curriculum (Math/CS/ECE
435) and will be offered by VIGRE PI Richard Brualdi in the spring
of the 2000-01 academic year.
A new sophomore level course on discrete mathematics (Math 240)
was developed in collaboration with the Electrical & Computer
Engineering Department and will be offered for the first time by
VIGRE PI Richard Brualdi in the spring of the 2000-01 academic
year.