John Allen Paulos

A capacity crowd of approximately 225 people filled Morton Hall Room 237 to hear the Mathematics Awareness Week 1998 lecture by Temple University Mathematics Professo r John Allen Paulos. The lecture was a reprise of Paulos's best-selling book "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper".

In the 45 minute lecture, Paulos spoke about the mathematical angles of stories in the news. Citing examples ranging from economic forecasts to the O. J. Simpson trial, he illustrated how statistics can be misused and misinterpreted. An enthusiastic period of questions from the audience followed the speech.

The audience was representative of the diverse university community. Faculty from mathematics and other departments and colleges were in attendance as were graduate and undergraduate students from many different audiences. The diversi ty of the audience underscores the importance of mathematics to everyone.

S.K. Jain and Sergio Lopez have received partial support from the National Security Agency to run a conference on Algebra and its Applications. With supplemented funding from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Mathematics, the conference will be scheduled during the Spring Break of 1999.

Honors Tutorial College Mathematics student Hai Q. Dinh is a recipient of the Jeanette G. Grasselli Brown Undergraduate Research Award for 1997-98. In addition to a certificate recognizing him as an award recipient, the award includes $1,000.00, which may be spent on research activities. The award is for a research project entitled "Quotient rings and trigonometric identities." Sergio Lopez is mentoring Dinh’s research. (photo)

John Prather, of our Eastern Campus, has been chosen to participate in Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) this summer, July 13- 18.  Project NExT is a MAA program for new or recent Ph.D's. There will be about 60 participants in the program, which emphasizes the teaching of undergraduate mathematics.

Project NExT fellows will participate in a series of three workshops held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the MAA and the joint meetings of the MAA and AMS.
In addition to discussing topics related to undergraduate mathematics, sessions will also focus on issues related to starting  a career in mathematics such as grant writing and balancing teaching and research.
 
 
 

Jeffrey Anderson created this file (http://www.math.ohiou.edu/math/newsletter/index.html) 6-18-98.