Math Dept 2025-26 Newsletter 7
Monday, 1 December 2025
Past newsletters can now be reached via the department website.
[Click on “About” and then “News and Events”].
Newsletter is sent out when there is something new.
Please send entries by the end of the workweek–Ed.
This will be the last newsletter for the fall semester. Happy Holidays! – Ed.
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MEETINGS AND SEMINARS IN THE DEPARTMENT
Data Science Seminar
Faculty and Graduate Students are invited to present their research at the Data Science Seminar. This includes research in other areas that involves data science.
Contact coordinator for more information.
Co-ordinator: Edmund Ameyaw
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TUESDAYS
Seminar on Topological Semigroups
Tuesdays, 11 am, on zoom.
John Johnson from The Ohio State University has been speaking about “Characterizing relative syndetic and thick sets via derived sets along ultrafilters.”
Contact coordinator for zoom invite.
Coordinator Dennis Davenport
WEDNESDAYS
Math team/Math Club meetings
TBA
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Math Biology Seminar
Wednesdays
Coordinators: Katie Gurski, Yeona Kang, Joon Ha, Sayomi Kamimoto, Chris Kim
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Algebra and Combinatorics Seminar
Combinatorics & Algebra Seminar which had been running for a number of years at George Washington University will now be a joint venture between the GW and Howard math departments. The organizers of the seminar are Joel Lewis & Robert Won (GW) and Sam Hopkins & Minh-Tam Trinh (Howard). The talks will take place 4-5pm on Wednesdays, at both GW & Howard depending on the speaker.
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THURSDAYS
Number Theory Seminar
Thursday 2:15pm on zoom.
Seminars will continue in the fall.
On Nov 20, Manami Roy of Lafayette College talked about Tamagawa numbers related to certain families of elliptic curves.
This year, we’re planning a mix of research talks and group readings/presentations. The learning seminars will be on topics in algebraic number theory, including class numbers, Dirichlet’s unit theorem, local fields, and cyclotomic fields.
Contact coordinators for zoom link.
Coordinators: Angelica Babei, Daniel Mamo and Sankar Sitaraman
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FRIDAYS
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Graduate Students Seminar
TBA
Contact person: Aaliyah Bratcher
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Mathematics Department Colloquium
Fridays, 4.10 to 5pm. Room 213 and zoom.
Seminars will continue next semester.
On Friday, Nov 21, Christian Rickert of University of Maryland, College Park talked about Cluster Algebras.
The colloquium schedule and videos are available at this website: https://deleo.website/HU/colloquium.html
TALKS AND WORKSHOPS OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT
1. (Thanks to Talitha Washington)
Faculty Update Session on AI curriculum development
This session will share updates on the Fundamentals of AI Certificate, outline how faculty can submit courses for the AI in the disciplines requirement, and provide space for your feedback and ideas as we continue building Howard’s AI curriculum.
Dec 3, 12 to 1:30pm, on Zoom
In previous newsletters:
Arizona Winter School in Number Theory, March 7-11, 2026.
The Southeastern Analysis Meeting, March 13-15, 2026
The 48th Summer Symposium in Real Analysis, June 14-20, 2026.
5th International Congress on Algebra, Number Theory and Their Applications (ICANTA’5), May 20-23, 2026.
International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics, Jan 7-9, 2026.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. In Memoriam: Seyoum Getu
With great sadness we announce the passing of our beloved former colleague, Prof. Seyoum Getu.
Dr. Getu was born on July 21, 1941, in Deder, in Ethiopia’s Hararghe Province. After receiving his B. Sc at Haileselassie I University (now Addis Ababa University), in 1966 he earned his M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and soon returned to Ethiopia to teach. In 1970, he returned to the United States to pursue doctoral studies and completed his PhD in mathematics at the University of Missouri in 1973, producing a dissertation on non-associative algebra in which he introduced a generalization of alternating rings.
Upon completing his doctorate, Dr. Seyoum returned to Ethiopia and took on the role of Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics at Haileselassie I University, serving until late 1974. As political turmoil engulfed the country, he left Ethiopia once again and joined the faculty of Howard University in 1975 as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1982. At Howard, he conducted research in algebra and enumerative combinatorics and became widely recognized for his work with generating functions. He co-authored several influential papers, including a seminal 1991 publication on the Riordan Group with Lou Shapiro, Wen-Jin Woan, and Leon Woodson. His scholarly work spans a range of influential contributions across algebra, combinatorics, coding theory, and generating-function techniques, reflecting both theoretical depth and innovative problem-solving approaches. Over the course of his thirty-one-year tenure at Howard University, he served with distinction, notably as Director of Undergraduate Studies from 1998 to 2004, before retiring in 2006.
Throughout his career abroad, Dr. Seyoum remained closely connected to Ethiopian academia. He spent his 1995–1996 sabbatical at Addis Ababa University’s Department of Mathematics, and after retiring from Howard University, returned to the department permanently in 2006. There he taught graduate courses, supervised master’s students, and continued contributing to the academic community until 2013. Outside academia, many in his community remember him as a man who quietly and consistently helped those in need.
Dr. Seyoum Getu passed away on November 22, 2025, in Addis Ababa at the age of 84. He is survived by his wife, Woizero Misrak, and his three adult children. His legacy endures in his family, his students, and the mathematical communities of both Ethiopia and the United States.
2. Cheikh Ndiaye spoke at the Morgan State University colloquium on “Mass, Interaction, and Uniformization in Conformal Geometry” on Thu, Nov 20.
3. Roberto De Leo spoke at the Howard University Physics and Astronomy department colloquium on Nov 12 about “Magnetoresistance, Fermiology, and Topology.”
In previous newsletters
MAA mathfest videos
NAM Undergraduate MATHFest
SCHOLARSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
(from various sources)
1. (Thanks to Dennis Davenport) Postdoctoral fellowships at U. Md Quantum Computing program
MathQuantum
is a community of faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate
students, and high school students working on various research
problems at the intersection of mathematics and quantum information
science.
This appointment, offered jointly by IPST (the Institute
for Physical Science and Technology) and the Department of
Mathematics, has both research and teaching components.
More
Information and job posting
2. Postdoctoral fellowships at DOE Fusion energy department
US citizens or permanent residents can apply. Substantial annual stipend.
3. Opportunities at DHS and DOE
Marine Energy Fellowship
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) enables research, development, and testing of emerging technologies to advance marine energy as well as next-generation hydropower and pumped storage systems for a flexible, reliable grid.
EM Stars program at DOE provides financial assistance for 2 years for undergrads and internships at their Environmental Management program.
DHS summer internships with stipend to work with DHS researchers
4. (Thanks to Dennis Davenport) EDGE foundation summer internship
The Edge foundation seeks to support woman researchers in mathematics, especially from underrepresented groups. Information about the overall program.
More Information about summer internship.
In previous newsletters
Boeing’s Visiting Professor program.
INTERESTING ARTICLES AND WEBSITES
1. (From Quanta Magazine)
(a) Can computers solve problems humans cannot?
So far AI has been used to solve problems that can also be solved by human beings. Can they go beyond?
Marijn Heule of Carnegie Mellon has been using logical rules of satisfiability (SAT) to solve unsolved problems from Geometry and Combinatorics. He believes the combination of SAT and LLM can solve highly sophisticated problems, and in ways that human beings cannot.
2. Physicists formulate real valued version of quantum mechanics
Ever since Schrodinger came up with his theory of quantum mechanics using complex numbers, it has been believed that the complex numbers are indispensable. But a team of theoretical physicists from Europe showed in 2021 that they are not necessary, and that quantum properties can be explained using real valued functions.