LEHIGH MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT NEWS

July 2009

Note From The Chair

Thank you for reading the Mathematics Department Annual Report. It has been another exciting year for the Department of Mathematics at Lehigh.  I would like to thank the dedicated faculty and staff of the department for working with me closely and creating a better environment to learn mathematical sciences on campus.  We have been fortunate to have had the resources and flexibility to put many good ideas into practice. During the coming year, we are committed to establish an even better academic environment for our students and faculty.

Wei-Min Huang
Professor and Chair
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University

The department offers three major programs leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (with a general mathematics and an applied mathematics option), and Bachelor of Science in Statistics. At the graduate level, the department offers programs leading to the degrees of Master of Science in Mathematics, Master of Science in Applied Mathematics and Master of Science in Statistics; Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics, and Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Mathematics.

I would like to share with you some highlights of the year. 

·        Women in Mathematics. According to Annual AMS-MAA Surveys of Leading U.S. doctorate-granting departments of mathematics by percentage of women doctorates, from academic year 1980-1981 to 1989-1990, Lehigh University’s Mathematics Department is ranked 10thhttp://www.awm-math.org/articles/notices/199107/jackson/#tab2). Based on a similar report for Academic Year 1995–1996 to 2002–2003 (Departments Granting an Average of at Least Two Doctorates per Year), Lehigh’s Mathematics Department is ranked 4th (http://www.ams.org/notices/200407/comm-women.pdf).

 ·        Lehigh Honorary Degrees.  Professor Shing-Tung Yau (one of the two chief editors of JDG) is one of the three honorary degree recipients this year. On May 18, 2009, Lehigh University will confer honorary doctorates to three individuals in recognition of lifetime achievement. Professor Yau is the recipient of a number of awards and honors, include the Fields Medal in 1982 "for his contributions to partial differential equations, to the Calabi conjecture in algebraic geometry, to the positive mass conjecture of general relativity theory, and to real and complex Monge-Ampère equations," a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, the Crafoord Prize in 1994, and the (U.S.) National Medal of Science in 1997.

 ·        Faculty Searches. We conducted two searches for tenure-track faculty at the assistant professor level, one in statistics and one in analysis.  In the analysis search, we successfully hired our top candidate Robert Neel (Ph.D., Harvard). In the statistics search, we received record high applications from many outstanding candidates.  Five of them were invited to visit Lehigh. We have kept our standard very high and once again are competing with the top schools and failed to fill the position. We decided to search again next year.

·        New Department Activities. On April 16, the mathematics department held a special in house dinner to celebrate the graduation of our majors and graduate students. Several students were also recognized and given department awards and prizes. Faculty, staff and students enjoyed the celebration very much. We also started a new “lunch with majors” activity. Majors were invited to have lunch with a small group of faculty. All the participants felt that it is a wonderful chance that students and faculty will meet outside the classrooms and communicate informally. We received many great ideas and comments from our majors. We plan to expand this activity next year and will try to have all of the majors involved in the activity. We are hoping that this will bring the students and faculty closer and create an even better academic learning environment.

o REU Pilot Program.  A pilot REU program is to begin this summer. Four of our majors will participate in this new program. This program is to promote undergraduate summer research opportunities and to enhance our undergraduate study in mathematical sciences. 

 

Student Awards

·        Mathematics Awards & Prizes.  Students who received 2008-2009 mathematics awards:

o       Mathematics Faculty Award: Sean White

o       Elisha P. Wilbur Mathematics Prize: Michael Brenner, Enkhbayasgalan Gantsog, Matthew Mulliken, Harry Paul, and Robert Rappa

o       C.-C. Hsiung Award: Timur Nezhmetdinov

o       Thornburg Mathematics Prize: Matt Parks & Ben Wilson


Special Events

Everett Pitcher Lecture Series. Our distinguished lecture series, the Pitcher Lectures, was once again held this year.  The speaker was Professor Maria Chudnovsky from Columbia University. Chudnovsky graduated summa cum laude from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, majoring in mathematics, and received the M.Sc. from Technion in Mathematics prior to studying at Princeton, from which she received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics. Maria Chudnovsky received her PhD from Princeton University in 2003. Currently she is an associate professor at Columbia University. Before that she was a Veblen Research Instructor at Princeton University and the IAS, and then an assistant professor at Princeton. Until April 2008 she was a Clay Mathematics Institute research fellow. Her research interests are in graph theory and combinatorial optimization. Recently, she was a part of a team of four researchers that proved the Strong Perfect Graph Theorem, a forty year old conjecture that had been a well known open problem in both graph theory and combinatorial optimization.

Geometry-Topology Conference. JDG sponsors an annual Geometry/Topology conference.  The most recent conference was held at Harvard University in May 2008.  As always, this conference was well-run, well-attended and generally successful. The lead organizer for these conferences is Professor David Johnson. The next Geometry/Topology conference will mostly be held at Lehigh University in May 2009. The conference has also been supported by NSF grants. Professors Cao, Davis, Johnson, and Szczepanski have been involved in obtaining the NSF conference grants.                


Analytical Finance Program and Masters In Statistics Progran.

In 1997-8, we instituted a new two-semester 400-level course in Financial Calculus. The first semester covers the basic mathematical concepts behind derivative pricing and portfolio management of derivative securities. It culminates in the Black-Sholes model and also deals with more advanced topics on continuous-time martingales, Brownian motion and Ito calculus. Among the topics in the second semester are interest rate market models, multiple stock n-factor models, and quantitative methods for portfolio management. We are continuing our cooperation with CBE and ISE in the M.S. in the Analytical Finance degree (a 1-year degree program).  Eight students received M.S.A.F. degrees in 2007-2008 academic year.  Professor Vladimir Dobric serves as the co-director from the mathematics department. For more information, contact Professor Vladimir Dobric at vd00 at Lehigh dot edu.

Beginning in Fall semester 1998, we have a new Masters program in Statistics. Prior to this, graduate students studying statistics would receive a degree in mathematics, with no official designation of their specialization in statistics. Many courses in probability and statistics will now be cross-listed between mathematics and statistics. The program will have two tracks, the Statistics track and the Stochastic Modeling track. The program has been running smoothly. For more information about this program, see our web page or contact Wei-Min Huang at wh02 at Lehigh dot edu.


Faculty & Staff Special News

Passing of Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Chuan-Chih Hsiung.  Professor Hsiung passed away May 6th 2009 at the age of 93. He was a person of determination and strong spirit. We will miss him. 

University Award. The mathematics department coordinator, Mary Ann Dent, was recognized and given the Perry and Carol Zirkel Staff Award
during this year’s Faculty/Staff Appreciation Dinner.

Journal of Differential Geometry. 

One of the jewels of the department is the Journal of Differential Geometry (JDG), founded by Professor C.-C. Hsiung and published by Lehigh ever since.  JDG is one of the premier mathematics research journals.  Its visibility and reputation significantly contribute to the visibility and reputation of the Lehigh math department.  Professor C.-C. Hsiung and Professor S.-T. Yau are the Editors-in-chief of JDG.  Professor Huai-Dong Cao serves as Managing Editor of JDG, and the journal is running very smoothly.  JDG is printed and distributed by International Press (IP) under contract with Lehigh.


American Regions Math League

The American Regions Math League is a national high school mathematics team contest that has been taking place each year since 1976. Professor Donald Davis continues his outstanding work with the high school students.  Every year for the past 15 years he has coached a Lehigh Valley team in the American Regions Math League (ARML) competition for high school students.  In 2004-5 he coached two teams, one of which placed first in the country.  In 2005-6 he coached three teams, one of which tied for third in the country.  In 2006-7 he coached four teams, one of which placed second in the country.  This is a truly remarkable achievement on his part.


Research Visitors

2008-2009.  In consideration of our need for teaching strength and our desire to hire someone who would contribute to our research mission as well, we had Dr. Wang-Q Lim as a visitor for the fall 2008 semester.  He worked with Professor Vladimir Dobric in the area of wavelets and applications in financial mathematics. The mathematics department has once again successfully filled the C.-C. Hsiung Mathematical Research Scholar and the A. Everett Pitcher Mathematical Research Scholar positions, each of which is a two-year position. We had Dr. Colton Magnant as the C.-C. Hsiung Mathematical Research Scholar in 2008-2009 and he is continued to be with us in 2009-2010.  Colton Magnant received his doctoral degree from the Emory University. Colton works in graph theory and in particular has been working on problems related to sufficient conditions for Hamiltonian paths.  Colton Magnant has been working closely with Garth Issak. Dr. Chris Orum will be the A. Everett Pitcher Mathematical Research Scholar in 2009-2010.  Chris Orum received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University in 2004. Since that time he has been at Los Alamos National Lab with a post-doc appointment. Chris Orum works in stochastic analysis, analytic number theory, random matrix theory, harmonic analysis, and combinatorics. We also had several short-term research visitors supported by faculty research grants and department funds: Vincent Borrelli (Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), Raul Jimenez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain) and Xi-Ping Zhu (Sun Yat-Sen University, China).     

2007-2008.  In consideration of our need for teaching strength, and our desire to hire someone who would contribute to our research mission as well, we had Dr. Murugiah Muraleetharan as a visitor for the Fall 2007 semester.  He worked with Professor David Johnson in the area of differential geometry. Two other research scholars, Dr. Gordon Heier and Dr. Wang-Q Lim, are finishing their two-year visiting positions this semester. Dr. Gordon Heier has accepted a position from UC at Riverside. Dr. Wang-Q Lim wishes to stay for another year.  We also had several short-term research visitors supported by department funds: Jesus Gonzalez (Mexico City), Tomasz Schreiber (Nicholas Copernicus University, Poland), and Eiji Yanagida (Tohoku University, Japan).