News
Kohler and Differential Geometry is Focus of Shanks Workshop
August 24, 2010 – The department hosted a two-day workshop on Kohler and Differential Geometry September 25-26, 2010. The workshop addressed recent advances in the study of special metrics on manifolds and their moduli space. The focus was on results related to the existence of Einstein, quasi-Einstein, and Ricci-flat Kohler metrics on manifolds as well as the moduli spaces...
Students Recognized for Outstanding Achievements
July 6, 2010 – Two graduate students and three undergraduates were recognized at the Department of Mathematics’ annual student awards ceremony in April 2010. This year’s graduate honors went to Justin Fitzpatrick for excellence in teaching and to Abey Lopez for outstanding research. Mathematics senior Sam Nolen was recognized for undergraduate achievement along with two runners-up: Scott Atkinson and...
Jo Ann Staples Retires
June 30, 2010 – Director of Teaching Jo Ann Staples retired in May 2010 after 35 years as a member of the Department of Mathematics faculty. Staples received her bachelor of arts in mathematics and physics from Western Kentucky University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Vanderbilt in 1975. She joined the Vanderbilt faculty as a lecturer...
Optimal Configurations on the Sphere and Other Manifolds
April 30, 2010 – The Optimal Configurations on the Sphere and Other Manifolds Conference was held at Vanderbilt May 17-20, 2010, in conjunction with the 25th Annual Shanks Conference and Lecture. The conference brought together mathematicians and scientists for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the structure of particle systems under a variety of physical constraints. These...
Eighth Annual NCGOA Spring Institute
April 8, 2010 – The Department of Mathematics hosted the Eighth Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras May 10-19, 2010. The theme of the 2010 event was Von Neumann Algebras. The Spring Institute is a combination of spring school and international research conference. During the school portion of the meeting, mini-courses were given by Cyril Houdayer,...
New Department Prize Recognizes Excellence in Postdoctoral Research
February 12, 2010 – Romain Tessera of the CNRS at the ?cole Normale Sup?rieure in Lyon is the recipient of the first Samir Aldroubi and Amira Azhari Prize for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research ? a new award announced by the Department of Mathematics. The Aldroubi-Azhari Prize will be awarded every two years to recognize the research achievements of current...
Shanks Workshop on Subfactors and Fusion Categories
February 1, 2010 – Recent developments in the study of subfactors, planar algebras and fusion categories will be the focus of a two-day Shanks Workshop hosted by the Department of Mathematics February 13-14, 2010. The category of bimodules associated to a subfactor forms a natural fusion category. Several “exotic” such categories have been found in recent years, and Jones’...
New Faculty and Postdocs Join the Department
August 15, 2009 – The department welcomes one new faculty member and ten new postdoctoral fellows this fall. Ioana Suvaina joins the department as an Assistant Professor. She received her? Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 2006 under the direction of Claude LeBrun. She then spent a year as an Instructor at the Courant Institute at New York University....
VU Mathematician Played Key Role in Moon Landing
July 20, 2009 – The U.S. is celebrating the moon landing that occured 40 years ago on July 20, 1969. Before that could happen,?as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) worked feverishly to meet Pres. John F. Kennedy?s goal of landing a man on the moon in five years, it had a daunting array of engineering problems to...
Mathematical Modeling in the Medical Sciences Conference
May 11, 2009 – The Mathematical Modeling in the Medical Sciences Conference will be held at Vanderbilt May 18-21, 2009, in conjunction with the 24th Annual Shanks Conference and Lecture. The conference is a forum for all areas of biomathematics, which encompasses the application of mathematical methods to the study of living organisms. Mathematics plays an essential role in...