News
Remodeled Offices, New Web Site Launch Fall Semester
August 25, 2010 – The completion of two renovations one physical and one electronic mark the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year for the Department of Mathematics. Offices and classrooms on the second floor have been remodeled, and the department web site has been redesigned, bringing a fresh look and new functionality to both. The second floor renovation involved...
Appalachian Set Theory Workshop, October 30, 2010
August 24, 2010 – The Department of Mathematics will host a one-day NSF & Shanks workshop on “The Complexity of Classification Problems in Ergodic Theory” October 30, 2010. The main speaker of the workshop will be Alekos Kechris of Caltech. This is one of a series of workshops on set theory for the Appalachian region which are supported by...
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....