Grad News

The Pasquale Porcelli Award for Graduate Research Excellence has been presented to three doctoral students: Carolyn Chun, Jens Christensen, and Adam Lowrance. Carolyn Chun has coauthored four research papers and has presented her research at conferences in both Canada and New Zealand. Jens Christensen has written or coauthored three research papers, presented numerous talks outside LSU, and has spent a Research Semester off campus at MIT, visiting Prof. Sigurdur Helgason. Adam Lowrance has written three research papers and has spent a Research Semester off campus visiting Prof. Peter Ozsvath at Columbia University.

Congratulations to three students: Rick Barnard and Shiyuan Gu will participate in the Mathematical Modeling in Industry XII - A Workshop for Graduate Students at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota. Jintao Cui will participate in the Industrial Mathematical & Statistical Modeling Workshop for Graduate Students at North Carolina State. Silvia Jimenez has been invited to give a talk at the Siam Annual Meeting in San Diego (July 9th) about her research. Silvia is a student of Prof. Rob Lipton. Jintao and Shiyuan are students of Prof. Sue Brenner, and Rick is a student of Prof. Peter Wolenski.

Graduate student Bacim Alali has won a Wylie Assistant Professorship in Mathematics at the University of Utah. Bacim's dissertation, written under the direction of Prof. Robert Lipton, is entitled Multiscale Analysis of Local Fields in Heterogeneous Media for Local and Nonlocal Continuum Theories. His dissertation research was sponsored by grants from The Boeing Company, the National Science Foundation, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Congratulations to Bacim Alali!

Congratulations to Dr. Hong Yin on his job at the University of Southern California. Dr. Yin has been offered a 3 year visiting assistant professorship at USC beginning this fall. His dissertation, written under the direction of Prof. P. Sundar, was entitled Backward Stochastic Navier-Stokes Equations in Two Dimensions. He worked this past year at Michigan Technological University, following his 2007 PhD graduation from our department. Hearty congratulations to Hong Yin.

The National Science Foundation has funded the Department's VIGRE (VERTICAL INTEGRATION OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION) proposal. This is very big news for the whole department. The grant will enhance all aspects of the Department's functioning, including Graduate Student Traineeships, new and stimulating programs for all mathematics graduate students and undergraduate students, and support for Post Doctoral Researchers. Congratulations to the VIGRE Project Director, Prof. Gestur Olafsson, to co-PI, Prof. Mark Davidson, and to co-PI and Department Chair, Prof. Larry Smolinsky! Find out the details about the departmental grant.

Congratulations to graduate student Sean Farley, who is working with Professor Blaise Bourdin. Sean has won a summer internship for 2008 as a Givens Associate at the Argonne National Laboratory. Sean will be working with Dr. Barry Smith and Dr. Hong Zhang (formerly of the LSU Mathematics Department) on PETSc. PETSc, pronounced PET-see (the S is silent), is a suite of data structures and routines for the scalable (parallel) solution of scientific applications modeled by partial differential equations.

Dr. Yu Zhuang (PhD 2000) has been promoted to tenure at Texas Tech University. He is co-PI of a $2,500,000 NSF Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) grant awarded to Texas Tech University to fund a project entitled "Simulations of Electronic Non-Adiabatic Dynamics for Reactions with Organic Macromolecules, Liquids, and Surfaces.

The current graduate students are launching a new program for incoming grads: GEAUXstands for Graduate Education & Acclimation the University eXperience! All are invited to attend. Program highlights include:

A grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents provides three Doctoral Fellowships. The students who receive these Fellowships for studies beginning in fall 2008 will have no teaching duties so they can concentrate on their own studies. The stipends will be $30,000 per year and will run for four years, tuition-free.

The Department graduated its two hundred fiftieth PhD in December, 2006. One hundred seven of these were graduated during the years 1990 - 2006. The remaining one hundred forty three were graduated from 1935 - 1989.