January 06, 2011

Several members of Davidson's mathematics faculty presented, and/or were featured in other ways, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans, Jan. 6-9.  Tim Chartier "Mime-matics" performance was called upon to be the featured MAA Lecture for Students, when the original speaker had to cancel just before the meetings started.  Also, Tim's 2007 article "Using the Force: Star Wars in the Classroom" was chosen as exemplary paper of PRIMUS, a journal on Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies.  His article was one of four articles distributed on complementary flash drives at the Joint Meetings.  Here is a list Davidson faculty and students on the meeting program:

• Tim Chartier spoke on A Model for the Community, in the MAA Session on "Innovations in Service-Learning at All Levels."
• Michael Mossinghoff was co-chair of the AMS-SIAM "Special Session on Mathematics of Computation: Algebra and Number Theory" that spans a day and a half.
• Tim Chartier spoke on When life is linear: research in numerical linear algebra, in an MAA Panel Discussion entitled "This could be YOUR graduate research!"
• Michael Mossinghoff was coauthor of a paper presented by Kevin Hare, Pisot and Salem polynomials dividing Newman polynomials, in the Special Session he is chairing.
• Laurie Heyer spoke on Creating/improving the biomathematics/biostatistics course in a Panel Discussion sponsored by SIGMAA on Mathematical and Computational Biology - SIGMAA on Statistics Education - and ASA/MAA Joint Committee on Undergraduate Statistics.
• Carl Yerger spoke on Steinberg's Conjecture on Higher Surfaces, in the AMS "Special Session on New Topics in Graph Theory."
• Tim Chartier gave a Mime-matics demo at the Museum of Math booth, Exhibit area.
• Students Colin Thomson '13 and Lake Trask '11 presented posters at the "Undergraduate Student Poster Session."
• Stephen Davis was a coauthor of a presentation by Michael Boardman, Calculus Reform and AP Calculus, in the MAA Session on "Influences of the Calculus Reform Movement on the Teaching of Mathematics." 

To complete the Davidson show, throw in an appearance by Stephen Curry when the Golden State Warriors played the New Orleans Hornets on the night before the conference.

The Joint Mathematics Meetings is the largest annual gathering of mathematicians in the world.