Ayesh Awad '24, Pagnapech Ngoun '26, Murilo Ferreira Lopes '27, Nicolas Alvarez '27 and five faculty Emily Elrod, Kristen Mazur, Brittany Riggs, Hwayeon Ryu and Aaron Trocki presented at MathFest, the annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America on August 7-10, 2024 in Indianapolis.
Elon University’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics had a strong showing this August at MathFest, the annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America. The conference was held in Indianapolis, Indiana from Aug. 7 through Aug. 10.
Ayesh Awad ’24, a former Lumen Scholar and recent graduate in engineering, along with Pagnapech Ngoun ’26, Nicolas Alvarez ’27 both in engineering and Murilo Ferreira Lopes ’27 in computer science, shared their collaborative research in a poster titled, “Mathematical Modeling of Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2.” Their research represents recent findings based on a new mathematical model that accounts for the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 and the human immune system. The research team is mentored by Associate Professor Hwayeon Ryu who also contributed as a judge in the undergraduate poster session. Their work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (under PI Ryu) and Ryu’s NSF-funded research was recently featured in The Burlington Times-News.
![Associate Professor Ryu (far left) with her research students, Pagnapech Ngoun '26 and Nicolas Alvarez '27 at the poster session.](https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/74/2024/08/thumbnail_IMG_4817.jpg)
![Kathryn Kozak (far left), Brittany Riggs, Emily Elrod, and Aaron Trocki.](https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/74/2024/08/thumbnail_IMG_4826.jpg)
Aaron Trocki, Brittany Riggs and Emily Elrod organized a contributed paper session, along with colleagues from the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), entitled “Engaging All Students in Meaningful Mathematics and Accessibility by Design.” Seven presentations highlighting effective instructional practices to engage all students were held during this session.
Trocki, Riggs, and Elrod delivered the oral presentation “Making Early College-Level Mathematics Relevant to Students’ Interests.” This represents work completed alongside Elon colleagues Larry Cantwell, Dan Flores and Nancy Scherich. The research shared information from a curriculum revision project in Applied Calculus courses at Elon. This work has been supported by a CATL Teaching & Learning Grant, funds from the College of Arts and Sciences’ HHMI Inclusive Excellence Grant and a Mathematics and Statistics Department Tech Champions Grant.
In the contribution paper session, Ryu also delivered her oral presentation “Project-Based Learning to Enhance Student Critical Thinking.” The research shared SoTL project results on assessing the effectiveness of Project-Based Learning and Write to Learn to enhance student critical thinking skills in MTH 4450 Numerical Analysis. This work has been supported by a CATL Teaching & Learning Grant.
Kristen Mazur delivered her oral presentation, in the Advances in Algebraic Topology Session entitled “Uniquely Compatible Transfer Systems.”