UW-L Math Times
Volume 18
Fall 2013
Seven New Faculty
New Learning Center
Teaching Award
The department welcomes
seven new tenure-track
faculty.
The Murphy Learning
Center has a brand new
look, but the same
mission.
Robert Allen wins Provost
Outstanding Teaching
award.
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Page 3
Page 5
The James Sobota Mathematics Scholarship
The department has renamed the Junior Scholarship Award to the James Sobota
Mathematics Scholarship to honor Professor Emeritus James Sobota for his many
years of service to the department.
Presented annually to the top junior mathematics major, as determined by the faculty. Named in honor of
Professor Emeritus James Sobota, in recognition of his unwavering dedication and service to the students,
faculty, and staff of the Mathematics Department at UW-La Crosse.
At the Spring 2012 awards ceremony, it was announced that Sara Kamoske had been
named the Junior Scholarship Award winner. Unbeknownst to her and Dr. Sobota, the
award had been renamed.
It was decided unanimously by the Math department to change the name of the award
to recognize the contributions that Dr. Sobota has made to the department, both
during his tenure and especially during his retirement.
Dr. Sobota has served as a member of the math department at UW-L for 32 years, starting in 1970. During that
time, he has impacted the lives of countless students. In addition to that, he has taught the children of former
students, having parents say to their children “you have to take Dr. Sobota for math.”
Not only has Dr. Sobota helped students during his tenure at UW-L, but has served to mentor faculty within the
math department. Dr. Robert Allen comments that “Dr. Sobota has had a direct impact on my career, and I
wouldn’t have tried the things I have without his feedback and support.”
Even in retirement, Dr. Sobota contributes to the department. He still teaches a
class every now and then, and he is acting as the director of the Murphy Learning
Center. What many people don’t know is that Dr. Sobota is still very active in the
hiring process in the math department. He offers tours of La Crosse and the
surrounding areas to candidates. These tours are sited by many as having
contributed to their decision to come to UW-L.
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Math Department Welcomes Seven New Faculty Members
Dr. Douglas Baumann
I was born and raised in West Central
Minnesota and earned a B.A. in
Mathematics from St. Olaf College
(Northfield, MN) in 2006. A week
after graduation, I was married and
off for Purdue University to study
Statistics, where I received my Ph.D.
in 2012. After a short appointment as a Visiting
Assistant Professor of Statistics at Purdue, I made the
move to La Crosse with my wife (Liz) and daughter
(Hannah, who is 6 months old now!).
I made the move from Mathematics to Statistics
because I found the types of projects I could work on
fascinating and the job prospects were
phenomenal! Although I avoided Biology entirely in
undergrad, I ended up applying the statistical
methods I was learning in classes to population
genetics and genomics applications in graduate
school, and I’ve loved it ever since. My interests fall
under the umbrella of “Statistical Bioinformatics,”
which is just a fancy way to describe the intersection
of Biology, Statistics, and Computer Science. I’m
really looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Feel free to stop by my office or drop me an email!
Dr. Matthew Chedister
I am one of the two new math
educators in the mathematics
department. I moved here from
Boston where I went to Boston
University for my undergraduate,
masters, and doctoral
degree. While in Boston, I taught
for five years at the middle and high school. I love
all mathematics but especially geometry.
In my spare time, I love sports (both playing and
watching). Recently, I have run three half-marathons
and hope to run another in the fall. I am an avid
reader (I read history books on any topic) and
collect and build Legos.
I love the La Crosse area and am excited to start my
work at the university.
Dr. Song Chen
I was born in a small town of Sichuan,
the homeland of panda in China. After I
got my B.S. in Mathematics from Peking
University, I left Beijing to Alabama
hoping to see the western world that I
read a lot about in classical literatures.
I spent five years of Ph.D. life in Auburn
University, where I found myself interested in
applying mathematical theories in real life uses.
I enjoy a lot of stuff besides math. I used to be a
coach of college softball team and a pub singer during
my undergraduate life. So you can image how excited
I am to find all the great facilities La Crosse has to
offer about tennis, biking and kayaking. Another thing
I appreciate the most is the friendly atmosphere
between students and teachers the department
managed to create. Anyone is welcomed to stop by
and talk about math, or not math.
Dr. Tushar Das
I was born and raised in
Calcutta/Kolkata, the somewhat large
(population ~15 million) chaotic
attractor that is supported along the
east bank of the river Hooghly, that
Continued…
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I like hiking and walking, and play
squash, cricket, soccer, badminton, golf
and table tennis... I'd like to learn rockclimbing and tennis. I enjoy listening to
various kinds of music, reading
literature, watching films, and tasting
and learning how to cook cuisines ...from
all over our planet! I also photograph and
play music, mainly on the piano. I'm
curious about almost everything, but
often feel like I know next to nothing.
Excited and looking forward to future
explorations alongside my UWL students!
I attended Illinois State University in
Normal and finished a master’s degree in
mathematics in 2010. This past August, I
completed a Ph.D. in Mathematics
Education. My dissertation research
focused on the teaching and learning of
trigonometry in the modern sciences. I
am also interested in a number of other
topics including the role of technology in
the teaching and learning of
mathematics, the history of the enacted
mathematics curriculum, the
development of probabilistic reasoning,
and the professional development of
teachers of mathematics.
Maria and I are very happy to be back in
Wisconsin and living in the beautiful city
of La Crosse. Although we’ve only been
here for a few months, the mathematics
department already feels like home. In
addition to my love of mathematics, I
have a number of interests and hobbies
including board games, Linux, musicals,
open source technologies, indie games,
puzzling, and science fiction. Feel free
to stop on by and say hello!
Unveiling of the New Department Website
My research work started out with
applying ideas from statistical physics
(thermodynamic formalism) to study
dynamical systems in one real variable
that had chaotic attractors of their own,
called Cantor sets (who was Cantor?). I
went on to study holomorphic dynamics
and the beautiful fractals associated
with the names of Julia and Mandelbrot,
but finally settled on studying limit sets
of Fuchsian and Kleinian groups that
tesselate hyperbolic space. [Look for
Maurits Escher's Circle Limits to get an
idea of how to visualize these.] My
current research involves generalizing
various aspects of this theory to settings
that are more or less negatively curved.
[For a few low-dimensional examples of
such spaces: think of a tree in a gigantic
neural network or the surface of a coral
reef, or even some kale.] I also work in
areas of number theory that share
boundaries with dynamical systems, in
particular the theory of Diophantine
approximation (who was Diophantus?)
that involve studying complicated
irrational (e.g. the square root of two)
and transcendental (e.g. pi) numbers
through much simpler numbers, namely
fractions (e.g. 99/70 or 355/133). You
may be surprised that this branch of
esoteric pure/theoretical mathematics
plays a surprising role in studying the
stability of planetary systems (e.g. look
up KAM theory). Finally, I am very
interested in the history of mathematics,
both in itself and also as part of the
broader history of ideas.
Hi. My name is Josh Hertel.
I was born and raised in
Eastern Wisconsin. I grew
up in the country outside
the village of Denmark.
After high school, I
attended the University of
Wisconsin–Eau Claire originally planning
to pursue a degree in music education.
However, after a few years into my
music degree I realized I also wanted to
teach mathematics. Consequently, I
ended up majoring in both music
education and mathematics education. I
finished my undergraduate work in 2005
and took a position teaching secondary
mathematics in Neenah, Wisconsin. After
teaching mathematics for three years
(and conducting the pit orchestra for one
musical :) ), I decided that I wanted to
pursue a graduate degree in
mathematics. My wife, Maria, and I made
the big decisions to quit our jobs, sell
our house, and move to Normal, IL.
As UW-L releases a new web presence, so does the Math Department. You will find information on
www.uwlax.edu/mathematics
feeds into the mouth of the lower
Ganges delta in the eastern India. I
studied mathematics at the University of
St. Andrews in Scotland (population ~5
million), and after graduating with a
B.Sc., went on to do my graduate work
at the University of North Texas in
Denton.
Continued…
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Dr. Edward Kim
I was born in San Francisco and raised in
Santa Rosa, in the heart of the region of
Northern California most famous for its
wines. In 2004 I graduated from UC
Berkeley in mathematics, then moved to
Davis to start a PhD in math. I graduated in June
2010. Though my time at UC Davis certainly gave me
the scientific training I needed, the fact that I had
lived in one of America's most bike-friendly cities also
prepared me to live in the world's most bike-friendly
country! I was a postdoctoral researcher in The
Netherlands for a year. Subsequently, I spent a year
researching in South Korea before coming to La
Crosse.
My mathematical area of expertise is
interdisciplinary, and it could be described as a
healthy mix of pure and applied mathematics. To sum
it up, I study discrete applied mathematics, where I
look at the interplay between optimization and
combinatorics. Optimization is a beautiful area in
applied math, which studies how to find the best
solution among many possibilities in a short amount of
time. My specialty in combinatorics is geometric and
topological combinatorics. Drop by some time so that
I can introduce you to my favorite object: the
polytope! I promise that you've seen polytopes before
in your life!
Some of the research that I do lends itself well to
computer programming, and specialty computational
software for discrete mathematics. In addition, I am
quickly becoming a fan of using SAGE for computation
and visualization in research. I've been looking at
ways of incorporating SAGE in the classroom to
enhance geometric understanding of concepts. If
you're taking my class, watch out!
The cheese aisles in the grocery stores amaze me.
Since I love to cook, I'll definitely have to create new
recipes incorporating the variety of cheeses. I hope to
take advantage of the trails and bluffs since I like
biking (obviously), camping, hiking, and downhill
skiing. I've played the piano for 25 years and I often
think about how to effectively teach applied music
theory.
Please feel free to stop by my office and introduce
yourself -- I want to meet everyone! Be sure to ask
about the seven-story bicycle-parking ramp (yes, I
said "parking ramp", not "parking garage") at the
downtown train station I used every week for a year
(guess where it was). Again, please say hello!
“In mathematics, the
art of proposing a
question must be
held of higher value
than solving it.”
- Georg Cantor
Dr. Chad Vidden
I was born in Grand Forks, North
Dakota where most of my extended
family still resides. Before starting
high school, I moved to the Mankato
area in south-central Minnesota. By
the end of high school I had already
decided I wanted to be a math professor, and that's
what I did! I was an undergraduate math major,
computer science minor at Minnesota State
University, Mankato where I met my now wife Nicole.
Later I was a graduate student in applied math at
Iowa State University. I graduated with a PhD in
spring of 2012. After, I spent a year teaching math at
the University of Wisconsin - Platteville, and now I
found my way to UW - La Crosse.
My research interests are generally in applied math
and numerical analysis. Mostly I teach my computer
to do math.
Outside of UWL, I enjoy spending time with my wife
and chasing my almost 2-year-old daughter Alexis.
For fun I like gardening, kayaking, bonsai,
fishkeeping, and playing volleyball.
I am excited to start my new adventure here at UWL.
I look forward to the start of the coming semester.
2nd Annual Calculus
Competition
The second Calculus competition will be held on
November 9th (9:30-11:30am). The top four
participants will win a Visa gift cards.
Anyone interested should contact Dr. Huiya Yan by
November 1st.
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MTH 412 Abstract Algebra II
MTH 447 Nonparametric Statistics
MTH 410 Complex Analysis
MTH 446 Analysis of Variance
Spring 2013 Senior-Level Courses
MTH 442 Mathematics Statistics II
MTH 480 Studies in Applied Mathematics
Robert Allen wins Provost Outstanding Teacher Award
Dr. Allen was one of the six faculty
members across campus recognized by the
UW-L Provost Office in its inaugural
presentation of the Provost Teaching
Excellence Awards. Students were asked by
the provost to nominate teachers who have
made the most difference in their UW-L
experience. About 200 nominations were
submitted, which were reviewed by
department chairs and college deans. Final
recipients were selected by a panel, which
included members of the Provost’s office, a
student representative, and the director of
CATL. Dr. Allen was formally awarded
during the chancellor’s All-University
Address on August 28, 2013.
In his four years here, Dr. Allen has taught a
wide range of courses in our department,
including all of the core courses for the
math major. Self-described as part stand-up
comedian, part counselor, and part
cheerleader, Dr. Allen’s engaging teaching
gets students to come back to class the next
day. That’s right where he wants them:
when students return, he can "help them
make broader connections with their
major." Students always look forward to his
lively lectures, and appreciate his
availability outside of class for office hours.
In fact, office hours for his classes (usually
held in the Murphy Learning Center) are
very popular. He expects his students to
work hard but also draws them into
mathematics by helping them have fun in
the process.
More importantly, it is clear that Dr.
Allen believes in his role as a teacher
outside of the classroom. He
acknowledges that his classroom energy
might initially draw students in to talk to
him, but that mentoring students in their
lifelong decisions and goals is one of the
most rewarding aspects of being a
teacher. He loves seeing those "moments
when you can see the light bulb go off."
He also fondly remembers times when
former students return to visit him and
retell one of their own favorite teaching
moments.
When asked
about his
initial
reaction to
hearing he
was
selected for
an award,
he said, "Disbelief. There are so many
great faculty members (not just in the
math department but across the
university)." With his excellent classroom
instruction and his passion to mentor
students so that they thrive in the
classroom and beyond, it is no surprise
that Dr. Allen was selected to receive
this award recognizing his teaching!
5th Annual Wisconsin Mathematical Modeling
Challenge (WMMC)
In October, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Department of
Mathematics will host the Fifth Annual Wisconsin Mathematical
Modeling Challenge (WMMC). This regional math contest gives
undergraduate students the opportunity to apply their math skills
to real world problems. In teams of three, students have 23 hours to develop and test a
model and write a one-page summary of their findings; teams have one additional (24th)
hour to finalize a 10 minute presentation explaining their results. Soon after preparing their
presentations, teams present their findings to other student WMMC participants. This year’s
contest will include cash prizes for winning teams, door prizes for participants, and plenty
of math.
If you’re interested in competing in this year’s contest, contact Dr. Eric Eager.
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Competitions, Research, and Graduation…Oh My!
Mathematics and Statistics Competitions
Undergraduate Research
Seven students competed in the Midwest
Undergraduate Data Analytics Competition hosted
by Winona State University in April. The students
were Danny Bero, Kristen Buschke, Jon Kosch, Brin
Krueger, Kylie Severson, Chris Wagar, and Mara
Weiner. Drs. Bennie, Bingham, and Toribio served as
advisors.
Danny Bero worked on undergraduate research with
Dr. Melissa Bingham entitled “A Permutation Test for
Three-Dimensional Rotation Data.” He presented at
NCUR and the MAA-WI sectional meeting. They have
submitted a paper to Involve.
Twenty-two students participated in the 1st annual
Calculus Competition at UW-L on November 3rd. The
top 8 students received cash prizes. The top 4
students received $80, $70, $60, and $50
respectively, and the next 4 participants received $25
each. The top 8 students were Thong Le, Khoi Tran,
Jacob Gloe, Yizang Li, Ali Khalili, John Gallagher,
Tyler Sarbacker, and Lance Hildebrand.
Three students from UW-L participated in the Putnam
Math Competition, held on December 1st with 4277
students competing from 578 institutions from the US
and Canada. Thong Le scored 20 points ranking 713th
out of 4277 and Douglas MacFarland scored 9 points
ranking 1627 our of 4277. This fall, Drs. Yan and
Matchett are offering a Putnam prep seminar to help
students prepare for the types of problems seen in
the competition.
Two teams of UW-L students won prizes at the 2012
Wisconsin Mathematical Modeling Competition held
at UW-L in October. Isaac Craig, Brett Rosiejka, and
Zach Tully won for outstanding presentation and
John Gallagher, Lance Hildebrand, and Casey
Shiring won for outstanding written summary.
Graduate School
Danny Bero is beginning the Ph.D. program in
Statistics at Iowa State University.
Mbaye Diaw is beginning the M.S. program in
Quantitative Financial Economics at Oklahoma State
University.
Blake Huebner is beginning the M.S. program in
Statistics at North Dakota State University.
Andrew Prudhom is beginning the Ph.D. program in
Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.
Kylie Severson is beginning the
M.S. program
in
- Georg
Cantor
Statistics at DePaul University.
Andrew Prudhom worked on undergraduate research
with Dr. Robert Allen entitled “Multiplication
Operators Between Iterated Logarithmic Lipschitz
Spaces on an Infinite Tree.” He presented his work
at NCUR. They are preparing a manuscript for
publication.
Charlie Schimenz and Veronica Tibbetts worked on
undergraduate research with Dr. Eric Eager studying
population dynamics of disturbance specialist plants
subject to autocorrected disturbance regimes. Their
work will be included in an ongoing manuscript
studying how the color of environmental noise affects
a population’s ability to persist.
Chris Wagar is currently working with Dr. Melissa
Bingham on a project entitled “Bootstrapping for
Measures of Central Tendency for Three-Dimensional
Rotation Data.” He presented his preliminary work at
the UW-L College of Science and Health Summer
Celebration of Research in August.
Job Placement
Stephanie Acker and Kevin Johnson are working as
actuaries in La Crosse at The Newport Group.
Jenna Buss is currently teaching math at
Southwestern Wisconsin School District.
Susan Frankki is in the management training program
at Toys R’ Us.
Dylan Pronschinske
is a math teacher at
Elk Mound School
District.
Samantha
Weatherford is
teaching 8th grade
math at Chippewa
Falls School District.
Math Colloquium
The Math Department
Colloquium is a seminar
series on Fridays from
4:00-5:00pm.
All are welcome, and
students are encouraged to
attend.
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The New Murphy Learning Center
Tutoring on the UW-L campus took a big step forward in the fall if 2009 with the
opening of the Murphy Learning Center, a tutoring facility housed on the second
floor of Murphy Library. This Center was designed so much of tutoring around
campus can be done in one area by trained and supervised tutors. The Center has
been a great success with numbers of visits growing each semester. The growth has
been so great that in the fall of 2012 a decision was made to renovate the Center to accommodate the growing
needs of students.
The Murphy Learning Center in its newly remodeled, expanded form is open for business. After a spring and
summer semester of tutoring in various rooms around campus we are back together in one facility again. We have
expanded to double the space we had last fall. We now have several separated spaces for different disciplines
including a room with a SmartBoard.
We welcome the addition of the Public Speaking Center to the Learning Center disciplines. This Center will help
students prepare presentations at all levels from freshman speeches to the formal presentations many upper level
students are making at various meetings. The Murphy Learning Center currently includes The Writing Center and
the Public Speaking Center as well as tutoring in Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Mathematics, Microbiology
and Physics. Stop by 251 Murphy Library to see this great new learning space.
We are grateful to The Academic Initiatives program and Bob Hetzel, Vice Chancellor for Administration and
Finance for funding the Learning Center and its remodeling project.
New Mathematics Department
Chair Dr. Rebecca LeDocq
Mathematical Biology CORE
Research Continues
I came to the Math Department in
1991, right out of graduate school
at the University of Iowa in Iowa
City. When I interviewed at UWL, I knew this was where I wanted
to spend my career. I remain ever
thankful to my fellow Iowa math
graduate who turned UW-L down
that year to take a job at a small
liberal arts college in Iowa! The Math Department at
UW-L was great then…it is outstanding now!
The collaboration between the mathematics and
biology departments on undergraduate research is
going strong!
Growing upon a dairy farm near Perham, Minnesota, I
never imagined I’d end up as a Math Professor, much
less chair of a department. As an undergraduate, I
was a Secondary Math Education major with a music
minor. I was the first in my family to go to college
and had no idea what graduate school even was.
That is, until my faculty advisor convinced me to
apply for a graduate school fellowship at the
beginning of my senior year in college. When I won
the fellowship, I was committed! To this day I am
grateful to my faculty advisor for seeing…whatever it
was she saw in me, and guiding me towards graduate
school. I found my niche, and I love it.
Outside the office, I share my life with my wonderful
husband, two great kids and two lovable cats! My
husband Mike teaches physics at Western. Our kids
are both in middle school at Lincoln this year: Ben is
in 8th grade, and Ella is in 6th. Bilbo and Gabby, our
two cats, manage the house while we are all away!
In the past year, 4 math majors have worked with Drs.
Bennie and Peirce on a host-parasite system funded
through the National Science Foundation's
Collaboration on Riverine Ecology program. Susan
Frankki and her biology partner further expanded an
epidemiological model to include transmission
parameters gleaned from exposure experiments
between native and invasive snails. Robert Wolf was
part of a team that used time-lapse photography
to quantified the mobility of infected and uninfected
snails. Both students presented their research results
at the National Conference for Undergraduate
Research. In addition, Susan presented her work at
the Joint Mathematics Meeting 2012 in San Diego.
In the Spring and Summer of 2013, two new
mathematical biology projects got underway with
Stephanie Kerswill and Rebecca Peot. Stephanie and
her biology partner developed a differential equations
model for the energy allocation of infected
snails. Rebecca was part of a team that used timelapse photography to quantified the light preference
of infected and uninfected snails.
In November 2013, they will present their results at
an Undergraduate Research Conference at the
Interface of Biology and Mathematics in Knoxville,
Tennessee.
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Employment Opportunities for Students
Do you enjoy helping your friends, roommates, classmates, etc. with their
math homework? Would you like to get PAID for it? The Mathematics
Department has several opportunities for you to do just that.
We are always on the lookout for good tutors to work in the Murphy
Learning Center, but you may not be aware of some other positions that
are available.
•
Tutors for the Murphy Learning Center
•
Peer graders
•
Peer teaching assistants.
You can also put your name on the Department’s private tutor list which is
given out to students looking for additional individual help. For more
information on any of these programs, please ask your instructor or anyone
in the Math Department. We are ALWAYS looking for good help!
What does this
question have to
do with math?
Can A Hoodlum
Take Off A
Set Of Handcuffs?
Mathematics Department
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
1725 State Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
Past, Present & Future Mathematics Student