Mathematics majors Christopher Shill ’14 and Jessica Stewart ’09. and mathematics faculty members Professor Jeff Clark and Assistant Professor Chad Awtrey. presented talks at the Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America in San Diego from Jan. 8-12, 2013.
Shill, a Rawls Scholar, presented his research results in a talk titled, “Galois 2-adic fields of degree 12.” This research, mentored by Awtrey, was also recently presented at an undergraduate research conference in Greensboro, and a corresponding paper has been accepted for publication in the conference’s proceedings (refereed by professional mathematicians).
Former Elon mathematics major Jessica Stewart presented her talk, “Spectral Analysis of the X_1-Laguerre Polynomials.” Stewart is currently in the mathematics Ph.D. program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, with an anticipated graduation date of spring 2014.
Clark inspired audience members with his talk, “Stressing Physics Content in a Multivariable Calculus Class.” As evidenced by listeners’ comments, he made a case for viewing Keplar’s laws of planetary motion as a capstone experience for calculus students.
Awtrey presented three talks at the conference. In support of Awtrey’s work for his CATL Scholars project, the talk “Writing To Learn in first semester calculus” focused on designing, implementing and assessing the effects of writing activities to improve students’ conceptual understanding in MTH 121: Calculus I. A corresponding paper has been accepted for publication.
Awtrey’s other talks, “Computing Galois-theoretic invariants for certain degree six p-adic fields” and “Computing Galois groups of ramified 3-adic fields of degree 12,” focused on research results from two of his recently published papers. Both projects were supported in part by an FR&D Summer Research Fellowship and an FR&D Course Reassignment Fellowship.