It is my pleasure to take this opportunity to report to you again and bring you up to date on the many activities and accomplishments of students and faculty in the Mathematics Department since our last annual report in 2014. The Mathematics Department continues to find ways to enhance both undergraduate and graduate programs. As you can see from this report faculty of the department continue to live up to the role of scholars-teachers that is characteristic of our department and Lehigh at large. 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.
I would like to share with you some highlights of the year.
Sad News – Professor Vladimir Dobric passed on April 7th 2015 and Professor Murray Schechter passed away on April 30th, 2015.
Faculty Search – POP in Mathematics & Statistics. In spring 2015 we conducted a search for a POP (Professor of Practice) faculty position in mathematics and statistics. We successfully hired Dr. Miranda Teboh Ewungkem. Miranda received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Master in Statistics from Lehigh University in 2003.
Frank Hook Assistant Professorship. Professor Robert Neel has been awarded the Frank Hook Assistant Professorship for the academic years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. These professorships are made possible through the generous support of an alumnus, Ron Freeman '60, in honor of his deep admiration for Professor of English Frank Hook who instilled in him a love of learning and literature that remains to this day. These professorships are awarded to Lehigh's most outstanding junior scholar-teachers who also foster personal interaction and mentoring relationships with students.
Faculty Recognition. Professor Lee Stanley was recognized and awarded the advising prize on March 26, 2015 at the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Dinner for his excellent advising. Professor Yue Yu’s research work was highlighted in the spring 2015 issue of Acumen.
Mathematics Awards & Prizes. Students who received 2013-2014 mathematics awards:
Mathematics Faculty Award: Denis Tilipman and Yuxi Zhai
Elisha P. Wilbur Mathematics Prize: Justine M. Gottlieb, Grace E. Heidelberger, Monica E. Shapiro, and Yuxin (Cedric) Wu.
C.-C. Hsiung Award: Andres N. Salcedo and Alexandria M. Yeager
Strohl Dissertation Fellowship. Xin Cui has received the Strohl Dissertation Fellowship (Dissertation Support Fellowship) for the 2015-2016 Academic Year. Made possible by a generous gift from Dale S. Strohl ’58, the purpose of Dissertation Support Fellowships is to accelerate degree completion for students of particularly high potential for achievement after receiving their degrees. The program is open to graduate students in all fields in the humanities or social sciences including theoretical mathematics who are entering the final year of writing their dissertations. Fellowships provide up to 12 months of stipend support to enable recipients to spend 100% effort on completion of the dissertation.
Strohl Summer Research Fellowship Awards. For 2015 summer, Robert Short has been awarded a Strohl Summer Research Fellowship for a project titled "Investigating Problems in Topological Robotics ". William J. Franczak has also been awarded a Strohl Summer Research Fellowship for a project titled "Topics in Computability and Randomness". The Strohl Summer Fellowship is funded by a generous gift from Dale S. Strohl (’58), these funds support students in summer research projects that enable them to acquire new research skills and experiences under the guidance of a faculty member. The CAS Summer Research Fellowship is awarded upon the recommendation of the department and the acknowledgement of an excellent academic record.
CAS Summer Research Fellowship. Brian Klatt has been awarded CAS Summer Research Fellowship to continue her research during the summer of 2015.
Mathematics Department Summer Research Fellowship. As it was mentioned above the new comprehensive examination policy will encourage our graduate students to begin their research earlier. The department will start re-investing the incentive fund to support summer research of our graduate students. This will function as a supplement to the university and college summer fellowship. We expect some of the first or second year best students will benefit from this research fellowship. As such, it is expected that any student receiving this fellowship will have passed the qualifying examinations by the start date of the fellowship. Alan Dyson and Steven Scheirer will be receiving the Mathematics Department Summer Research Fellowship in summer 2015. Sarah R. Charley and Mackenzie Wildman will also be receiving summer research support this summer. The summer research fellowship or summer research support is specifically intended to enable the recipient to devote 100% effort to research in pursuit of dissertation completion. The Mathematics Department Summer Research Fellowship is awarded upon the recommendation of the department and the acknowledgement of an excellent academic record.
Students Receiving Ph.D. Degree. Rivka Win received her Ph.D. in January 2015. Three students (Samuel Clearman, James Long, and Matt Prudente) are receiving their Ph.D. degrees in May 2015. This is significant accomplishment in their life. All of these students have served as teaching assistants in the department and have greatly contributed to our academic mission.
Master and Bachelor Degrees. Two students (Robert Short and Shijue Wang) received master degrees in January 2015. Eleven students (this is perhaps a record high) are receiving master degrees in May 2015. Three received bachelor degrees in January 2015 and ten will receive bachelor degrees in May 2015.
Special Department Activities. (1) On April 15, 2015, during Graduate Student Appreciation Week (April 13th - April 18th), the mathematics department again held a special in house “cakes and ice cream” event to celebrate the graduation of our majors and graduate students. Three students (Andres Salcedo, Alexandra Yeager and Matthew Kilgore) were also recognized and given department awards and prizes (the C.-C. Hsiung Mathematics Award and the Thornburg Mathematics Prize). Faculty, staff and students enjoyed the celebration very much. This event is funded by the mathematics department Gifts Fund. (2) We also revealed a newly designed math Ti-shirt during the Pi-Day celebration.
Colloquium Series. Intellectual life in the department remains very active. Our colloquium series was especially lively and was supplemented by additional seminars. We have successfully encouraged our graduate students to attend most of the talks. We had more than 20 speakers for our colloquium series in the academic year of 2014-2015. Thanks to Robert Neel and Daniel Conus for coordinating the colloquium.Everett Pitcher Lecture Series. This year we are blessed that we have two distinguished speakers; Terence Tao and Wendelin Werner (both received Fields Medal in 2006).
Faculty Research and Scholarship. Scholarship is a fundamental expectation for anyone in an academic role. To proceed through the academic ranks of a university via the regular promotion and tenure process, scholarly achievements must be demonstrated through evidence of effectiveness of teaching, research, professional activities and community contributions. Scholarship is the application of systematic approaches to the acquisition of knowledge through intellectual inquiry. This knowledge needs to be spread through various means such as publications, presentations, professional practice, innovation in practice, initiative and leadership in practice, effective scholarly mentorship of colleagues and students, and the application of this new knowledge to the enrichment of the life of campus and society. Our faculty members continue to be very active in research and scholarship.2014-2015 Research Visitors. In consideration of our need for teaching strength and our desire to hire someone who would contribute to our research mission as well, we hired Dr. Nan Lu in 2014 as research visitor. The title of his position is the C.-C. Hsiung Mathematical Research Scholar, a one-year position and supported by the C.-C. Hsiung Fund for Advancement of Mathematics. Nan Lu’s was reappointed for an additional year. We had three one-year research visitors: Fei Yang (University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China), Chunlei He (Anhui Normal University, China), and Ernani Ribeiro Jr. (Federal University of Ceara, Brazil), and Byungchul Cha (Muhlenberg College, PA). We also had several short-term research visitors mostly supported by faculty research grants and department funds. This year short-term visitors are: Le Chen from the University of Utah – October 28-31 working with Daniel Conus; Ugo Boscain, December 17, 18 & March 5, 6 working with Rob Neel; Chenxu He, December 4-7 working with Huai-Dong Cao; Fernando Coda Marques from Princeton, December 3-4 working with Huai-Dong Cao; Tucker McElroy from the U.S. Census Bureau, September 2-3 working with Soutir Bandyopadhyay; Ngonghala Calistus, May 19-22 working with Miranda Teboh-Ewungkem; Sibabrata Banerjee from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Undergraduate Career talk; Kelly Zou from Pfizer, April 28-30, Undergraduate Career talk. Other short-term visitors are Jeffrey Case (Princeton), Paul Feehan (Rutgers), Patty Garmirian (Tufts), Thomas Laetsch (University of Connecticut), Si Li (Simons Institute of Tsinghua/University of Beijing), Ana Menezes (Princeton), and Peng Wu (Cornell).
Journal of Differential Geometry. One of the crown 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. After Professor C.-C. Hsiung passed away, Professor S.-T. Yau of Harvard University became the only 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.
Geometry/Topology Conference. The annual Lehigh University Geometry and Topology Conference has been sponsored by NSF since 2006 and it is jointly supported by the Journal of Differential Geometry Fund at Lehigh. Of the previous 27 conferences, 18 have been held at Lehigh, with 9 at Harvard (during 1992 the conference was not held due to a regional AMS meeting being held at Lehigh). In September, 2014 the JDG Conference was held at Harvard University. The annual Lehigh University Geometry/Topology Conference in 2015 will be held May 22-24, 2015, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This time the focus will be primarily on algebraic topology, celebrating the 70th birthday of Don Davis. The annual conference has been supported by NSF grants. Professors Cao, Davis, Johnson, and Szczepanski have been involved in obtaining the NSF conference grants. In May 2013 NSF awarded a new grant for support of the project entitled "Lehigh-Harvard Geometry and Topology Conference," and will be under the direction of Huai-Dong Cao, Donald Davis, and David Johnson. This award is effective May 1, 2013 and expires April 30, 2016.
Analytical Finance Program. We are continuing our cooperation with CBE and ISE in the M.S. in the Analytical Finance degree. The Analytical Finance Program is a true interdisciplinary program. It is perhaps an MS program with more applications than any other MS program at Lehigh University. A good number of students received M.S.A.F. degrees for the last two academic year. The total number of applications each year for several years has been more than 500. The increased quality of applicants has prompted the program directors to increase the total number of students in the program from 24 to 60. This is followed by further increase of quality of accepted students.
Issues with Christmas-Saucon Hall. The physical state of Christmas-Saucon Hall is a continuing challenge (for example; handicapped accessibility and needing accommodations for special needs students and how these are important for Lehigh’s mission to equality) for the mathematics department, although I am pleased to report that the building has benefited from increased attention over the past few years. An increasing number of faculty and teaching assistant offices have been renovated and in better condition. Some minor renovation projects will continue this summer. A major 10-million dollars renovation to the entire building has been proposed by the upper administration but it is unclear when will it be approved. A new higher sped Wi-Fi has just been installed and will be operational in the middle of May.