Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Applied Mathematics
Illinois Institute of Technology
Assistant ProfessorArea of interest and specialization: Graph theory, combinatorics, and applications.
These are almost always out of date:
Curriculum Vitae
(pdf,October 2007)
Papers
(HTML,October 2007)
Research Summary
(pdf,October 2007)
Meta-links for Math Undergrads: AMS undergrad site, IIT undergrad site
"Practice" (updated 9/14/06): Feel free to show up for all or part of the session, whether or not you plan on participating in competitions. If there is enough interest, we may schedule a second meeting each week. (To get on the mailing list, go here.)
October 2006: The Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest. (IIT students did some damage in 2005, but the highest-scoring IIT student (Keith) was just shy of being listed on the contest webpage. Just wait until next year!)
December 2, 2006: The Putnam is the most famous national math competition for undergraduates, and it takes place the first Saturday in December every year. Find old problems and other resources here.
February 2007: The Math Modeling Contest (and Interdisciplinary Modeling Contest) takes place over one weekend. Students work in teams of size 3, choose between a discrete problems and a continuous problem. This is a different sort of contest than the others. To get an idea of what it is like, you can look at problems from previous years. If you're interested in this, please contact me.
April 2007: As part of the
2007 Illinois MAA Meeting,
there will be a student competition,
probably held in the late afternoon on a Friday.
At the
2006 Illinois MAA Meeting,
IIT teams took 1st place (Jonathan Beagley, Keith Campbell, Anthony Parillo),
tied for 2nd place (Laura Rodriguez Masquera, Jeffrey Stanford, Christos
Mitillos) with another team, and took 4th place (Elliot Barlow, Xuan Kang).
15 students in total attended that meeting.
At the 2005 ISMAA meeting
we participated in this competition and
one of our teams took fourth place.
(That article originally appeared
here.)
Old exams can be seen
here.
More problems: from Konhauser Problemfest, Macalester Problem of the Week, Purdue Problem of the Week.
Some potentially useful facts and formulas. I have a book somewhere which expands on this greatly. In fact,
Good books for would-be problem solvers:
There are many research opportunities nationally (even internationally), or you could do research with a professor at IIT. (There are also a few semester programs.)
I highly recommend doing a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), and I'm happy to discuss this with any IIT student that may be interested. Don't wait until the last minute, because you need to ask your professors for recommendation letters, and it's polite to give them plenty of time to do it. (I have a handout with more advice about getting a strong recommendation letter, which you I've taped to my office door.) [If I have already agreed to write a recommendation for you]
Start out by browsing through programs listed on websites of the NSF and the AMS. Many programs funded are restricted to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and most are intended for current juniors or sophomores, but there are exceptions in both cases. Many deadlines are in February, but the NSA is in October!
Generic description: Each REU consists of a group of ten or so undergraduates, who work in the research programs of the host institution. Students are in general accepted from throughout the country. Each student is assigned to a specific research project, where he/she works closely with the faculty, post-docs, and graduate students. In addition, seminars, lunch meetings, and social functions are organized to facilitate interaction between the undergraduates. Students are granted stipends, and in some cases assistance with housing and travel. Women and members of under- represented minorities are particularly urged to apply. Most are restricted to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, but there are exceptions.
If you're not a US citizen or permanent resident but you happen to have enough money to support yourself for the summer, then many other programs might also consider you, even if the websites say that they're limited to US citizens and permanent residents. In that case, you can send them an email asking about (suggesting) this possibility, or simply just apply to the ones that you are interested in and mention that you don't need a stipend.
Some examples of summer programs that accept non-U.S.-citizen-or-permanent-residents
Notes:
Summer Research at IIT The situation will vary widely depending on the faculty member. There is some funding available for supporting undergraduate research at IIT. If you ware interested in working with some faculty member, contact them directly. I can also give advice.
Intensive Math Semesters Abroad Budapest Semesters in Mathematics is an incredible experience, mathematically and otherwise. I hear that Math in Moscow is great, too. There's also an intensive-math semester at Penn State, which might appeal to certain students as an alternative.
Careers in Mathematics An undergraduate degree in applied mathematics makes you a desirable candidate for many different careers. To get a hint of this, you could see the book 101 Careers in Mathematics, Second Edition (I have a copy). There is more information on our department webpage. Searching for it on Google yields a number of useful webpages. [MORE TO COME]
Not organized yet... Government jobs, also internships/co-ops (I have some more specific information): NSA Census Bureau NIST NASA DOE: Los Alamos Sandia National Labs
For (U.S. citizen/national or permanent resident) seniors interested in math grad school
If, for example, you're writing essays for applications, consider the
Humanities Writing Center. (This is different from the
Academic Resource Center, which I
recommend for help with math classes.)
For professional-looking mathematical documents, use LaTeX (or TeX) with a text editor. For MS Windows, try WinEdt with MiKTeX.
Not totally unfamiliar. Be sure to sleep enough before an exam.
A nice Mathematical Reading list, with comments. (I found it here.)
Linux in Spitak, Armenia... Spitux!
MathSciNet (Quick Search) (Full Search)
During the broadcast of the radio show "Whad'Ya Know", the host, Michael Feldman, comes down into the audience to take questions from people. Including my mother. (March 25, 2006 - Part 3, starting around 24:30)
How I spent my summer vacation.
I play Ultimate frisbee. Photos from Fall 2007 [1] [2].
My old, out-of-date homepage
