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July 2010

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OSU Mathematics Update - July 2010
by News items for alumni and friends of the OSU Math Dept 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Dear Friend of the OSU Mathematics Department, This note is the first of what I plan as brief updates on what has been happening in the department. These will be sent two or three times a year. This past year the department was host to two research conferences, one devoted to partial differential equations and especially to those governing fluid flows, and a second in geometric topology which also served to honor Professor William Jaco on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The first conference, First Oklahoma PDE Workshop, http://www.math.okstate.edu/ok_pde_workshop, was held November 21-22, 2009 and was organized by Professor Jiahong Wu and was supported by the National Science Foundation. A second PDE workshop will be held at OU in the fall. It is hoped that this will become an annual occurrence with the site alternating between Stillwater and Norman. The conference on Topology and Geometry in Dimension Three: Triangulations, Invariants, and Geometric Structures held June 4-6, 2010 drew over 90 participants. NSF and the American Institute of Mathematics provided support for the conference. In addition to the scientific program there was a banquet on Saturday evening with reminisces by colleagues and students of Professor Jaco. Former OSU faculty member and department head Brian Conrey acted as host and presented Professor Jaco with a mathematics genealogy of his students and his advisor. A conference announcement http://www.math.okstate.edu/jacofest/about.html gives a brief description of the program and biography. More details and pictures are available on our website, http://www.math.okstate.edu/jaco_conference_article. The graduate program has made substantial progress toward the goal of having an average of two or more doctoral students finish each year. Three graduated in December and one graduated in May. Another defended his dissertation in June. Progress toward degree for doctoral students is less predictable than that for undergraduate degrees. Some years we have had no students finish with Ph.D.'s, so years like this one help raise our average. Dr. David Wright was named the 2009 winner of the Oklahoma-Arkansas MAA Teaching award. The award was presented in 2010 because an ice storm forced the 2009 meeting to be ended shortly after it began. OSU was selected as host of the 2013 meeting of the Oklahoma-Arkansas section of the MAA. The website, http://www.math.okstate.edu, underwent a face-lift and reorganization this spring. There are still additions to be made. Please have a look. We welcome comments and suggestions for improvements. You can find 2008 and 2009 online newsletters and other news items under the menu labelled *About Us*. Best Wishes, Dale Alspach Professor and Head P.S. You are receiving this email because your address appears either on the mathematics alumni email address list or on a list provided by the OSU Foundation. If you do not want to receive future updates, send me a message and I will remove you from this email list.

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