Monday, 25 January 2021

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.

We congratulate Howard alumna Kamala Devi Harris on her inauguration as the 49^th Vice-President of the United States – Ed.

MEETINGS AND SEMINARS IN THE DEPARTMENT

Mondays

Combinatorics Seminar

TBA

Coordinator: Louis Shapiro

TUESDAYS

Seminar on Topological Semigroups

To start, Dr. Justin Moore of Cornell will talk about some of his recent work.

Time TBA. Seminar will meet using Zoom. Please contact coordinator for a link.

Coordinator Dennis Davenport

WEDNESDAYS

Math team/Math Club meetings

Please contact organizers for zoom link.

Organizers: Jill McGowan (math club), Lou Shapiro (math team)

Thursdays

Graduate Student Seminar

Meeting from 12 to 1pm on Thursdays. Contact coordinator for link.

Coordinator: Matthew Cavallo

Fridays

Geometry Seminar

TBA

Coordinator: Roberto de Leo

Mathematics Department Colloquium

This semester our Colloquium are shared between us and Cornell's Colloquium.

TALKS AND WORKSHOPS OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT

1. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is hosting a virtual career fair for STEM students and faculty on January 26.

Registration website.

2. (Thanks to Aziz Yakubu and Henok Mawi)

David Blackwell summer research institute (UCLA/Berkeley)

Information and Application forms

This program aims to honor Blackwell’s legacy by attempting to increase the number of undergraduate students who aspire to achieve his level of excellence and widen participation of African-American men and women in obtaining PhDs in the mathematical sciences. This will take place on the UCLA and UC Berkeley campuses, from June 21 to July 30, 2021. The last week of the program includes a trip to Berkeley, where all program participants will meet with each other and share their work, hosted by the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. African Americans comprise 4% of PhDs in engineering and 3% of PhDs in mathematics granted from 2010-2020.

The David Harold Blackwell Summer Research Institute will be led by Profs. Todd Coleman (UCSD Bioengineering), Wilfrid Gangbo (UCLA Math), and Jelani Nelson (UC Berkeley EECS), who will mentor the students directly.

3. (Thanks to Dennis Davenport)

David Blackwell summer research institute (Illinois)

Students interested in learning more about statistics, data science, and mathematics are invited to apply to a paid intensive six-week program - beginning May 24, 2020, and ending July 2, 2020. The initial program is taking place remotely via online sessions and seminars with faculty, graduate students, and affiliate campus units.

For more information about this program, please visit https://stat.illinois.edu/alumni/david-blackwell

4. (Thanks to Mohammad Mahmood) QEM/NSF Talent Development and Innovation Sciences (TDIS) Summer Internship

The ten-week, virtual summer internship opportunity (May 24 – July 30, 2021) is made possible through a grant to the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The internship will provide $6,000 (undergraduate) and $7,000 ( graduate) taxable stipend, payable in three installments during the summer.

Application at:

https://form.jotform.com/QEMNetwork/2021-TDISIntershipapplicationform

Application Deadline – Final deadline Wednesday, March 12, 2021

Decision Notification – Friday, April 2, 2021

ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Mohammad Mahmood writes: “The Chemical Sciences Division of the Army have been funding our research project, “Study of energetic materials under extreme conditions of high pressure and high temperature,” since 2009, renewing our research grant every three years.”

2. Louise Raphael writes: The new journal Communications on Number Theory and Combinatorial Theory (CONTACT) has published its first article, which is on Sudoku squares! This journal is open access and features the double-blind referee process. Original research work in number theory or combinatorics are welcome to be submitted to this journal:

https://research.library.kutztown.edu/contact.

3. (From our friend Edray Goins): Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry Summer REU

Know an undergrad interested in summer research in algebraic geometry or number theory? Tell them about the Pomona Research in Mathematics Experience (PRiME)! It will run virtually from June 13 through August 27, 2021. Applications due February 15.

Application website

4. (Also from Edray Goins, via Tristan Hubsch) April Strom and I are forming a subgroup of the MAA Congress to look at widening the membership in the MAA. In particular, we're looking into how to increase members from (1) Community Colleges, (2) Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and (3) Research I Universities. But we need your help!

We're looking for voices from these underrepresented communities to serve on this committee. In particular, we'd like to have:

· 2 members from Community Colleges

· 2 members from HBCUs / MSIs

· 2 members from Research 1s

We expect this subgroup to meet throughout Spring and Summer 2021, then present some action items at the MAA Congress meeting at MAA MathFest 2021. If you have an interest, please feel free to send me an e-mail at edray.goins@pomona.edu.

SCHOLARSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

(from various sources)

1. (Thanks to Louise Raphael) NSF Data Analysis and Statistics Summer Internships

https://zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/NSF-NCSES-Summer-2021

Deadline: March 31, 2021 4:00PM EST

The National Science Foundation (NSF), National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) provides policy makers and the public high-quality information on the science and engineering enterprise.

This internship is for participants in a wide variety of fields including, but not limited to: Business Management, Communications and Graphic Design, Computer Sciences, Economics, Marketing, Mathematics and Statistics, and Survey Methodology.

2. (Thanks to Aziz Yakubu) The Woods Hole Partnership Program is accepting applications for the 2021 summer undergrad internship research program. Application materials and program information are available on the

PEP website

The program dates are May 29 through August 7. Application deadline is February 13.

3. 2021 EERE Summer Internships

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Internship Program is a 10-week summer internship program for students majoring in a field related to high performance computing.

Applications and supporting materials must be submitted at

https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/DOE-EERE-HPC-2021

Deadline: Application and recommendations are due February 1, 2021, 4:00 PM EST.

Their Robotics Program also offers internships. Application deadline Feb 8.

https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/EERE-Robotics-2021

In previous newsletters

MAA funding opportunities

Summer Lab Internships at DHS

INTERESTING ARTICLES AND WEBSITES

1. Some teachable statistical moments from the election

Was there only a one in quadrillion chance that Biden could have won?

Did Biden get some 15 million more votes than he could possibly have?

I plan to talk about these in my Patterns class – Ed.

A possible student project identifying outliers in vote data

2. (Thanks to Louise Raphael) Game that reveals limits of mathematics.

The “busy beaver” game tries to find the maximum length of a program with a fixed number of rules run by a Turing machine. It has also yielded connections to some difficult problems. For instance, one particular game can be used to check whether the Riemann hypothesis is true.