Math majors and faculty present at the national Joint Mathematics Meetings

Keenan’s talk, “Algorithms for Computing Quartic Galois Groups: Computational Efficiency.”  His work, mentored by Awtrey, is currently being prepared for submission to a research journal.

Rodgers and Weed co-presented their talk, “Galois Groups of Degree 15 p-adic Polynomials.”  This is joint work with Nicole Soltz ’17, Assistant Professor Kristen Mazur, and Awtrey. Their work has been published in the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

​Arangala spoke on “Exploring Linear Algebra: Labs and Projects with Mathematica.”  Her talk focused on the contents of her recently published lab manual of the same name (published by Chapman Hall/CRC).  The materials help integrate inquiry-based learning pedagogies into the linear algebra classroom in a fun and meaningful way.  Many of the projects have been used as a foundation for undergraduate research projects.

Clark’s talk “Mentoring Mathematical Programming in Undergraduate Research” discussed his experience mentoring students on projects that rely heavily on computer programming.  Clark also attended a meeting of the Mathematical Association of America’s Committee on Minicourses and monitored two minicourses during the conference.

Awtrey gave two presentations.  The first, “Groups of order 16 as Galois groups over the 2-adic numbers” described his joint work with John Johnson ’15 and UNC-Greensboro doctoral students Jonathan Milstead and Brian Sinclair.  Their work has been published in the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

His second, “Symmetries of polynomial roots” was based on work with Taylor Cesarski ’17 to bring some ideas of advanced mathematics into the high school classroom.  A corresponding paper is being prepared for submission to a research journal.

Awtrey also conducted official business in his roles on the Council on Undergraduate Research and the national office of Pi Mu Epsilon.  Awtrey currently serves as Treasurer of CUR’s Division of Math/Computer Science and as the Business Manager of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal.