Math Department Highlights

Evelyn Sander's article, "Modeling Dynamical Systems for 3D Printing" (co-authors Stephen K. Lucas and Laura Taalman), was chosen to be published in Princeton University Press' prestigious The Best Writing on Mathematics 2021. 

This annual anthology brings together the year’s finest mathematics writing from around the world—and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy the pieces collected here. These essays—from leading names and fresh new voices—delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday aspects of math, offering surprising insights into its nature, meaning, and practice, and taking readers behind the scenes of today’s hottest mathematical debates.

Padmanabhan Seshaiyer was recently named the winner of the 2022 Inclusivity Award presented by the Mathematics and Computer Sciences Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR).

Learn more about his efforts.

Congrats to Mathematics faculty Joanna Jauchen for receiving the prestigious 2022 Presidential Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching. This award is presented to a faculty member whose teaching inspires and stimulates students in the finest tradition of higher education. Evaluation criteria include growth and development as an educator, student and learner engagement, assessment of student learning and teaching effectiveness and evidence of transformative impact. Joanna’s leadership and dedication to teaching and learning has impacted thousands of students as well as all faculty in Math department and in many other units. She has been a tireless advocate for active learning and the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion both as an educator and in her role as Associate Chair for Teaching and Equity. Well deserved!

Congrats to Mathematics faculty and CMAI Director Harbir Antil for being selected by the National Academies to serve as a member of the Intelligence Science and Technology Experts Group (ISTEG). The Intelligence Science and Technology Experts Group (ISTEG) is a large, diverse group of experts across the broad range of science, technology, and medicine, each of whom are available to provide occasional quick response technical advice to ODNI and the other federal government agencies that comprise the Intelligence Community (IC). This selection reflects high level of achievement by Prof. Antil and is a recognition of his status as a top expert in the field.

Harbir Antil, Professor, Mathematical Sciences, and Director, Center for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (CMAI) recently received $300,000 from the U.S. Department of the Air Force for a research project. Antil and his research team aims to enable scalable automated design, data analysis and optimization of highly nonlinear dynamical systems with uncertainty.

More on this study

Congratulations to Joanna Jauchen, our Associate Chair for Teaching and Equity, on being awarded the David W. Rossell Quill Award! This is awesome news and well deserved.

This award recognizes individuals whose efforts exemplify the leadership and dedication of David W. Rossell, who retired from George Mason University in 2007 with over 20 years of loyal service. His devotion to the Mason community focused on leadership, teaching and fulfilling Mason’s mission. The award is given to faculty who work on projects or initiatives outside the realm of normal duties, resulting in the advancement of the University's mission, who share time and expertise in service to the University and to the community and put students first. It recognizes faculty leadership and effort to advance the stature of the department and/or the entire University. Joanna truly exemplifies all of the above characteristics.

In honor of Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) highlighted influential mathematicians and statisticians in their community. This included Padhu Seshaiyer, Professor, Mathematical Sciences who currently serves as the Chair of the SIAM Diversity Advisory Committee.

Read full highlight

https://science.gmu.edu/news/first-mason-mathematics-student-alumni-conference-and-research-symposium-success

This #FacultyFriday features Joanna Jauchen, Instructor, Associate Chair for Teaching, Mathematical Sciences, is this week's #FacultyFriday feature. Jauchen specializes in intersectional, critical feminist STEM education research on faculty engagement in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) service. While she has always enjoyed math, she fell in love with the beauty of the discipline in their undergraduate studies, “It sometimes feels magical the way things work together in mathematics and I like understanding how the magic works,” she said. As an educator, she finds joy in talking to students about their own understanding of mathematics.

This #FacultyFriday features Mahamadi Warma, Professor, Mathematical Sciences. Warma is currently working on two major research projects with approaches based on the rich and fruitful mathematical apparatus offered by PDE, functional analysis, controllability, optimization, and numerical approximations. He has published a total of 79 papers, with seven of those published in 2022. Warma is very active in the Center for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (CMAI) at Mason. His passion for math started in high school and continues to grow as he faces new challenges with an eagerness to solve them.

Our first #FacultyFriday feature of the month kicks off with Rebecca R.G., Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences. R.G.’s research is in commutative algebra, a field of math that involves studying the behavior of algebraic objects like rings and modules. R.G. is passionate about supporting students and creating a space for everyone to do math. As a result, she worked with colleagues to organize several multiple programs including the New PhD Mentoring Program, the Graduate Learning Assistants (GLA) Program, and the PhD Launchpad Program. R.G. is a big advocate for active learning, reflected in her newly designed course, History of Math (joint with Jessica Otis). Be sure to stop by her office to see crocheted models of hyperbolic planes and a Sierpinski triangle shawl. 

New Faculty to Mathematical Sciences

New Faculty to Mathematical Sciences

Dan Anderson, along with two co-authors, Peter Guba and Andrew Wells, has been published in the February 1, 2022 issue of Physics Today. Physics Today, the flagship publication of the American Institute of Physics, is the most influential and closely followed physics magazine in the world. The article, "Mushy-layer convection," aims to provide a physical understanding of mushy layers by describing the mechanisms behind their convective processes. The synergy between analytic models, laboratory experiments, and computational simulations has been instrumental in developing a comprehensive picture. The article begins by explaining how mushy layers form, features two ubiquitous examples—one from Earth’s cryosphere and another from metallurgy—and concludes by highlighting new insights into convective phenomena in ternary systems.  https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4940

After two years of development, on November 18, 2021, in Richmond, the Virginia Board of Education was presented with the first-ever High School Data Science K-12 Standards of Learning and Data Science Curriculum Framework. Five lead taskforce members, including our own Professor Padmanabhan (Padhu) Seshaiyer as well as others from Fairfax County, Prince William County, and Frederick County Public Schools, and the Virginia Department of Education, were in attendance as key to the process.   

The Board was very pleased with the work and commended GMU and Professor Seshaiyer specifically for their part in the development. They accepted the plan under "first review" and will proceed now to the next steps of public review. As this evolves in the coming months, all high school students in the entire state of VA will have the option to take this new class and will enter college proficient in data science – no matter the particular field of study they choose to pursue.    

The recording of the entire BoE meeting is available at this YouTube link. The specific data science session confirmation is about 25 min long (from 00:59:08 to 01:23:45) YouTube link 

Mason professor Evelyn Sander has been elected to the leadership Council of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). SIAM is an international community of over 14,000 individual and over 500 institutional members. They are a non-profit organization committed to advancing research in, and application of mathematics and computational science. In her candidate statement she committed to helping SIAM make strides in D&I, saying, "Within mathematics, SIAM stands out for its attention to diversity and inclusion of members of groups who are traditionally underrepresented in mathematics, including diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and geography. However, severe inequity remains, and the Council should focus on changes that encourage inclusion."

Read more of her candidate statement here: SIAM News. 

Congratulations, Professor Sander!

Harbir Antil, Professor, Mathematical Sciences; Director, Center for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, is studying optimization problems with partial differential equation (PDE) constraints.  

He and his collaborators aim to create new optimization methods Deep Learning frameworks to solve several currently intractable optimization problems constrained by: fractional harmonic maps, advection dominated (also limiting transport equations) arising in magnetic targeted drug delivery, general inequality and equality constraints such as contact or complementarity. All these problems are nonlinear, nonconvex, and nonsmooth in nature. 

Antil received $340,000 from the National Science Foundation for this project. Funding began in August 2021 and will end in late July 2024. 

Maria Emelianenko, Chair and Professor, Mathematical Sciences, is set to receive $42,000 from the Simons Foundation to study mathematical methods for materials and biological network analysis. 

"This work is focused on developing mathematical tools able to quantify and predict structural characteristics of materials and biological networks in connection with specific properties of interest. In particular, these theoretical investigations will allow [for the elucidation of] the mechanisms responsible for changes in network statistics due to cancer mutations (in biological pathways) or heat treatment (in materials). Ultimately, these insights will pave a way toward a better understanding of adaptation and damage resistance in these diverse yet intrinsically linked natural systems," Emelianenko said. 

This funding will begin in September 2021 and will end in late August 2026. 

Padmanabhan (Padhu) Seshaiyer, at Mason since 2007, is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Science. In his research he develops analytical techniques and computational algorithms in an effort to understand and solve a wide range of problems, including the physiology of the human vascular system, the mechanics of brain aneurysms, the motion of micro-air vehicles, the spread of the Zika virus, and drone-based efforts to prevent elephant and rhino poaching in Tanzania. Seshaiyer has initiated and directed a variety of educational outreach programs and received many high-profile awards for his teaching, research and outreach.

Meet #MasonScience Mathematical Sciences Professor Maria Emelianenko. Emelianenko is an interdisciplinary mathematician who applies mathematical theory to a wide range of problems across the sciences. She directs Mason's Industrial Immersion Program and advises the Women in Mathematics student organization George Mason University. She is also the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Additionally, Emelianenko researches the interface between mathematics and other areas of science and engineering, such as materials science, chemistry, and biology. 

Professor Sean Lawton won the university level Teaching Excellence Award by the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. 

The Teaching Excellence Awards are both institutional recognition and a monetary acknowledgment of the significant work that faculty members devote to course planning and preparation; curriculum development; and innovative teaching, advising, and undergraduate and graduate mentoring.

Professor Sean Lawton won the university level Mentoring Excellence Award by the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR).

The purpose of the OSCAR Mentoring Excellence Award is to recognize and reward outstanding Mason community members who mentor undergraduate students on research and creative activities and who foster a culture of student scholarship.

One of Harbir Antil's research project has made into the National Science Foundation (NSF) newsletter.  This is the first time a project from Computational Math Program at NSF has been chosen for this newsletter.

Researchers simulate air flows to understand, minimize, and suppress the spread of pathogens such as COVID-19.

2020 Career Connection Faculty Award Winner

Harbir Antil is the Director of the Center for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (CMAI) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, George Mason University. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation, AirForce Office of Scientific Research, Department of Navy, and Department of Energy. He has published many articles in leading journals and has given numerous plenary lectures at national and international meetings.

Members of the math department at George Mason University Drs. Anderson, Emelianenko, Seshaiyer, Warma and I (Sander) attended the Math Alliance’s graduate student fair. The Math Alliance is a group committed to promoting diversity in doctoral studies in the mathematical sciences; GMU math has recently become an institutional member. While some members of our group had previous experiences with the group, I never had. It was a great experience, to meet prospective graduate students from underrepresented minorities from all over the country. The meeting was on Sococo, a platform which looks a bit like a moving map of a conference with little dots for each of the participants. I had a chance to chat in the lobby with a number of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students who were attending the event. It gave students an opportunity to ask questions on graduate admissions and career preparation, and it gave faculty a chance to profile their programs and get their names onto the map. It was quite inspiring to see how many of the highest rated universities in the country were represented at this event. It gives me hope that as a community, we will be able to address the striking underrepresentation in the profession. I look forward to working in a greater capacity with the Math Alliance, by attending the career fair next month, and in future by serving as a mentor, and working with  underrepresented students in helping to prepare them for graduate school and careers in mathematics. 

Mason professor Rebecca Goldin has been elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society for "contributions to differential geometry and service to the mathematical community, particularly in support of promoting mathematical and statistical thinking to a wide audience." Rebecca is the first GMU math professor to be so honored. Congratulation, Rebecca!

Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer (left) traveled to Tanzania as part of the Volunteer Lecturer Program of the International Mathematical Union. He taught mathematical modeling to students and professors, and helped to strengthen STEM infrastructure in Tanzania as well as establish a new research program for M.S. students in the country. He wrote an article on his experience, which can be found in the August 2018 issue of the Notices of the AMS.

Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer and SIAM student chapter members Amy Tucker, Samuel Cogar, Ratna Khatri, Cigole Thomas from GMU and other nearby universities promoted mathematics and its applications at the 2018 USA Science and Engineering Festival on April 6-8 in Washington, DC. Prof. Sehsaiyer's article on the experience can be found in the May 2018 issue of SIAM News.

Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer and other faculty and students from GMU were volunteers for the largest regional MATHCOUNTS event in the nation on Feb. 2, 2019. The competition included 520 mathletes from 58 schools including Fairfax, Northern Virginia and Washington school districts. Winners from the competition will compete at the state level in Richmond.

Jack Love is the outreach coordinator for the Mason Experimental Geometry Lab, where he helps to develop and deliver fun and engaging mathematics activities for local elementary through high school students. He was interviewed by Fairfax County Television (view youtube) before leading a workshop on symmetry at Patrick Henry Library.

Professor Emeritus David Singman receives the rarely-awarded GMU Math baseball cap at the spring 2019 Mathematical Sciences luncheon. The prestigious honor was conferred by Chair David Walnut.

Patrick Bishop, Alathea Jensen, Jack Love, Arsah Rahman and Professor Evelyn Sander ran the Mathematics in Motion booth featuring their original mathematical artworks at the Maker Faire NOVA on March 18, 2018.

In May, Mason announced the recipients of the 2022 Graduate Inclusion and Access Scholarship for incoming first-generation doctoral students from underrepresented populations. Mathematics PhD student, Sky Ratcliffe, is one of four individuals to earn this scholarship and receive financial support for the upcoming academic year.

Klaus Fischer Award for Academic Achievement in Mathematics

• George Andrews
• Jolypich Pek

Mary K. Cabell Award to the Outstanding Mathematics Student

• Zachary Richey

Genevieve G. Feinstein Award in Cryptography

• Brandon Barreto-Rosa

Amer Beslagic Award

• Ryan Nguyen

Mary Nelson Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Merold Saffa

Mary Nelson Award for Excellence in Community Outreach

• Aidan Donahue

Clarke Family Award for Excellence in Analysis, Algebra, or Topology

• Cigole Thomas

T.C. Lim Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Aleyah Dawkins
• Martha Hartt
• Jackson Williams

This award recognizes excellence in service by a student in the College of Science for the 2021 – 2022 academic year. The nominations review committee seeks out those students who significantly contribute to the reputation and mission of the College of Science and George Mason University. Congratulations Aleyah!

PhD student Cigole Thomas won “Best Poster Presentation” at the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) research poster session for graduate students at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM). Congratulations!

Swan Klein gave an invited presentation on “Two-Qubit Quantum Circuit Synthesis” at the WoPhyS 2021 Conference on Thursday, October 21. 

WoPhyS 2021 is the 12th Annual Conference of the serial conference held by the University of Nebraska– Lincoln (UNL) affiliated materials science centers. It brings together outstanding women researchers in the physical sciences, along with their supervising faculty, for a three-day conference covering research topics in STEM areas. 

One of the objectives of the WoPhyS conference is to provide undergraduate and graduate students with a platform to present their research to their peers. This rare opportunity to be an invited speaker at a conference as a student researcher will allow students to develop their ability to present scientific ideas and information.  Congratulations Swan.

Abstract:

Every single-qubit Clifford+T operator can be uniquely written in a T-count minimal normal form circuit. Furthermore, a linear-time algorithm exists for computing the normal form of every Clifford+T operator. Our goal is to find a normal form for the two-qubit Clifford+T gate set using the SO(6) representation of the Clifford+T operators. It is desirable to represent circuits using as few T gates as possible as it is more computationally expensive to use T gates than Clifford gates. We intend to use the results of an algorithm we wrote to exhaustively compute the patterns of Clifford+T circuits with up to 10 T gates to give us insight into developing a normal form and exact synthesis algorithm, which would aid in the efficient implementation of quantum algorithms.

Klaus Fischer Award for Academic Achievement in Mathematics

• Zachary Richey

Mary K. Cabell Award to the Outstanding Mathematics Student

• Ethan Clelland

Genevieve G. Feinstein Award in Cryptography

• Sarah Boyt

Amer Beslagic Award

• Kerrie Bruce

Clarke Family Award for Excellence in Analysis, Algebra, or Topology

• Rafael Arndt
• Deanna Easley

T.C. Lim Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Aleyah Dawkins
• Mathew Hasty
• Patrick Bishop

Ph.D. student Ratna Khatri spent the summer of 2017 at Argonne National Lab as part of the prestigious NSF Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship Program. This summer, she will return to Argonne as a Givens Associate.

Stephanie Mui won a first place award of $2000 from the American Mathamtical Society at the 2016 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her research on visualizing geometric surfaces with the Mason Experimental Geometry Lab (MEGL). Her work and a wider discussion of MEGL and similar labs across the country can be found in the October 2018 issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

Undergraduate MEGL member Marvin Castellon (left) won best poster/presentation at the Spring 2018 GMU COS Undergraduate Research Colloquium. His project team includes undergraduate Seth Lee, graduate student Cigole Thomas, and faculty supervisor Sean Lawton. The project concerns asymptotic properties of families of dynamical systems governed by algebraic structures.

Alathea Jensen is a participant in the GMU Industrial Immersion Program, sponsored by the GMU Provost Office, which funds 4 Ph.D. students per year to spend part of their time in research labs and industry. She has been working on a stochastic enumeration project with advisors Jim Lawrence and Isabel Beichl (NIST) for two years. Alathea has accepted a tenure track position at Susquehanna University starting fall 2018.

Patrick Bishop, graduate student and Math Makerlab member, showed Lanier Middle School students how to design 3D printed mathematical objects in OpenSCAD. Although it was the last week of school, the 7th graders showed great enthusiasm for 3D printing and design.

Marvin Castellon, an undergraduate MEGL participant, has been accepted in the mathematics Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley with the Chancellor's Fellowship. Marvin has been a central member of Sean Lawton's MEGL research team exploring dynamics on algebraic varieties over finite fields since summer 2017. He has written powerful exploratory programs and created important visualizations leading to provocative conjectures and helped direct the search for proofs of those conjectures.

Undergraduate math major Robert Argus spent summer 2018 at the Park City Mathematics Institute in Utah, run by Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Robert has done research as part of the GMU EXTREEMS-QED program and has participated in several research programs in the last couple of years, including NIST SURF, the UCLA RIPS program, and a Math in Moscow semester.

Graduate student Ryan Vaughn and undergraduates Aneesh Malhotra and Orton Babb discuss a project on data analysis in the Mason Experimental Geometry Lab (MEGL). They are supervised by faculty member Tyrus Berry.

Marilyn Vazquez is a Ph.D. student in the GMU Industrial Immersion Program and spends one day a week as a guest scholar at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD. She expects to finish her degree this summer and has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship with ICERM at Brown University in the fall.

Jiajing Guan received an honorable mention in the 2018 Goldwater Scholarship competition. She is the fourth math major in four years with this recognition, following Lucas Bouck, Harout Boujakjian, and Austin Alderete. Jiajing, a GMU EXTREEMS participant, has been accepted in the prestigious UCLA Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS) program to continue research this summer

Lucas Bouck is a 2018 awardee in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program. He has done research on multivariable equation solvers at NIST in Boulder CO, and on fractional PDEs with GMU mentor Harbir Antil. Upon receiving his B.S. degree in spring 2018, Lucas plans to attend the Ph.D. program in applied mathematics at the University of Maryland in the fall.

Congratulations to Micheal Belete for his Outstanding Poster Award at the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings. Micheal presented his work on equilibrium stability in a model for diblock copoloymers mentored by Dr. Sander and Dr. Wanner as part of the EXTREEMS-QED undergraduate research program. The research was part of a team project with Andrew Hornstra.

Congratulations to Orton Babb and Aneesh Malhotra on their Outstanding Poster Award at the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings. Their work on diffusion maps for dimensionality reduction was mentored by Dr. Berry in the Mason Experimental Geometry Lab (MEGL).

Congratulations to Avery Austin, Heath Camphire and Sam Schmidgall, who took part in the MEGL project "Nonholonomic motion planning for self-driving cars" with Dr. Lukyanenko. Schmidgall's poster presentation on the project won an Outstanding Poster Award at the 2019 Joint Mathematical Meetings in Baltimore.

Undergraduate and graduate GMU students talking math at the Joint Math Meetings 2019 in Baltimore. Left to right: Orton Babb, Aneesh Malhotra, Yemeen Ayub, Patrick Bishop and Arsah Rahman.

Math major Brendan Gramp at the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore explaining bilevel optimization generalized to infinite dimensions. Brendan was mentored by Dr. Antil as part of the EXTREEMS-QED undergraduate research program.

Julian Benali is a co-recipient of the 2019 Klaus Fischer Award for Academic Achievement in Mathematics. Research mentor Rebecca R.G. presents Julian with the award.

Brendan Gramp (right) is a co-recipient of the 2019 Klaus Fischer Award for Academic Achievement in Mathematics. Research mentor Harbir Antil presents Brendan with the award. Brendan plans to enter the Ph.D. program in applied math at the University of Maryland in the fall.

Savannah Crawford is the winner of the 2019 Genevieve G. Feinstein Award in Cryptography. Anton Lukyanenko presents Savannah with the award.

Zachary Richey is the co-winner of the 2019 Amer Beslagic Award for outstanding performance in mathematics in the first two years. Chair David Walnut presents Zachary with the award.

Deborah Myung is the co-winner of the 2019 Amer Beslagic Award for outstanding performance in mathematics in the first two years. Tyrus Berry presents Deborah with the award.

Yemeen Ayub is the winner of the 2019 Clarke Family Award for Excellence in Analysis, Algebra, or Topology. Graduate coordinator Flavia Colonna presents Yemeen with the award.

Peter Rizzi (left) is the co-winner of the 2019 Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching. Graduate committee memeber Walter Morris presents Peter with the award.

Calvin Stanley (left) is the co-winner of the 2019 Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching. Graduate committee memeber Walter Morris presents Calvin with the award.

Deepanshu Verma (left) is the recipient of the 2019 Achievement in Analysis Award. Graduate mentor Harbir Antil presents Deepanshu with the award.

Ph.D. students Brent Gorbutt (second from left) and Thom Ales (second from right) receive ceremonial hoods representing conferral of the Ph.D. degree at the spring 2019 Mathematical Sciences luncheon. Munirah Aljuaid (not pictured) also receives the Ph.D. degree this year. Thesis advisors Flavia Colonna, Rebecca Goldin, and Neil Epstein perform the honors.

Jiajing Guan (left) is the recipient of the 2019 Mary Cabell Award. Research mentor Tim Sauer presents Jiajing with the award. Jiajing will use her NSF Graduate Research Fellowhip to attend the Ph.D. program in applied math at the University of Maryland in the fall.

Arsah Rahman and Patrick Bishop captivated a crowd lining up to learn about math at Makerfaire NOVA. Topics included plane tessellations, one-sided surfaces, and the five regular solids, which come in pairs (even though there are an odd number of them).

GMU Ph.D. student John Maxwell (right) at the 2019 SIAM Computational Sciences and Engineering conference in Spokane, WA.