2004-2005 News Archive

Dan Barbasch to Be Next Chair

At a meeting of the tenured and tenure-track faculty on Wednesday, May 18th, the faculty voted unanimously to elect Dan Barbasch as the next department chair, effective July 1, 2006. Ken Brown will continue as chair through June 30, 2006. Dan and Ken will work together during the coming year to ensure a smooth transition.
—posted May 20, 2005

Maria Terrell Wins Russell Teaching Award

Dr. Maria Terrell was presented a Stephen & Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award at a College of Arts & Sciences faculty meeting on Wednesday, May 4, 2005. She was selected by a committee composed of former Russell Award winners and Dean G. Peter LePage. Maria has consistently demonstrated her devotion to teaching not only in the classroom but also through development of new methods of student instruction. Most recently, she created the GoodQuestions project, introduced homework study group sessions to MATH 111-112, pioneered the use of MapleTA to conduct pre-class questions, and was involved in the creation of an Instructional Technology Support TA. Maria also conducts the department's annual Teaching Assistant Training Program. Two other department faculty members have won Arts & Sciences teaching awards. They are Ravi Ramakrishna, who won a Russell Award in 2002, and Ken Brown, who won a Clark Award in 1987.
—posted May 5, 2005

Gregory Lawler Named Fellow of American Academy of Arts & Sciences

On April 26, 2005, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences announced the election of 196 new Fellows, including our own Prof. Gregory Lawler. The Academy will welcome this year's new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members at its annual induction ceremony in October at the Academy's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Academy was founded during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other leaders who contributed prominently to the establishment of the new nation, its government, and its Constitution. Now in its third century, the Academy continues to mobilize the intellectual resources needed to anticipate, examine, and confront the critical challenges facing our society. Five other Cornell mathematics professors have been elected to the Academy. They are Leonard Gross (2004), Richard Durrett (2002), Harry Kesten (1999), Eugene Dynkin (1978), and William Thurston (1978). [Academy Announcement] [Cornell Press Release]
—posted May 4, 2005

Stability and Chaos in the Solar System

Professor John Hubbard, Department of Mathematics, will give a public lecture Wednesday, April 27th, 4:30 PM in 251 Malott Hall for Mathematics Awareness Month. His lecture, Stability and Chaos in the Solar System, will be aimed at a general audience. [Poster]
—posted April 19, 2005

Camil Muscalu Awarded Sloan Research Fellowship

Camil Muscalu was one of five Cornell faculty to receive a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship this year. Sloan fellows are engaged in research at the frontiers of physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience, and economics. The fellowships allow scientists to continue their research. Fellows are free to pursue whatever research is of most interest to them. Camil's research area is in harmonic analysis. Particularly, he has worked on the "modern theory" of multilinear singular integrals which includes objects whose complexity goes well beyond the complexity of the fameous Carleson operator, related to the pointwise convergence of Fourier series. [See Cornell Chronicle.]

Previous recipients of a Sloan Research Fellowship include Yuri Berest (2001), Richard Durrett (1981), David Henderson (1968), Gregory Lawler (1986), Irena Peeva (1999), Reyer Sjamaar (1996), John Smillie (1985), Birgit Speh (1983), and William Thurston (1974).
—posted February 25, 2005

Yulij Ilyashenko Receives French Honor

The French Government has named Yulij Ilyashenko Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. The award was given to him last Monday by the French Ambassador to Moscow at the Independent University.
—posted January 31, 2005

MATH 189 Student Receives Honorable Mention

William J. Polacheck, a freshman in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, has been awarded the James E. Rice, Jr. '30 Honorable Mention for his essay Dimensions for Dummies, written for Kristin Camenga's Freshman Writing Seminar MATH 189: Pictures in 100 Words or Less. Created in spring 1999, MATH 189 is a very popular first-year seminar, and we have been able to offer it in both fall and spring with support from the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines.
—posted January 25, 2005

William P. Thurston Receives AMS Book Prize

Professor William P. Thurston received the 2005 AMS Book Prize on January 6th at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta for his book Three-dimensional Geometry and Topology, edited by Silvio Levy. The book presents Thurston's "Geometrization Program," one of the big events of modern mathematics. The Book Prize recognizes an outstanding research book that makes a seminal contribution to the research literature, reflects the highest standards of research exposition, and promises to have a deep and long-term impact in its area. Related Links: AMS Press Release | Other Awards Presented in Atlanta
—posted January 12, 2005

Math Major Awarded Prize at Joint Meetings in Atlanta

Math major Peter Maceli '06 was among those awarded a prize for outstanding work in the Undergraduate Student Poster Session at the Joint Meetings in Atlanta for his poster Analysis of 3-Dimensional Fractal Tree Canopies. The poster was based on work done last summer in the REU program at Ithaca College. Related Links: REU at IC - Fractals
—posted January 12, 2005

Awards Presented at Department Holiday Party

On Friday, December 3rd, department faculty, graduate students, and staff gathered once again at the Statler Hotel's Terrace Lounge to celebrate the holiday season and the end of the fall semester. Awards were presented after dinner, followed by dancing.

Department Chair Ken Brown presented the department teaching awards for 2004 to Leonard Gross (senior faculty), Tara Brendle (junior faculty), Kasso Okoudjou (junior faculty), and Heather Armstrong (teaching assistant). The winners were chosen from among 84 nominees.

Director of Graduate Studies Michael Stillman presented the Battig Prize jointly to Antonio Montalban and Roland Roeder, the York Award to Jeffrey Mermin, and the Hutchinson Award to Drew Armstrong and Treven Wall.

Winners were also announced for the second annual Gingerbread House Contest. Four teams of graduate students built gingerbread houses and guests at the party selected a winner. Related Links: Party Photos | Contest Photos | Teaching Awards | Graduate Student Awards
—posted December 7, 2004

Lecture Series To Honor Raju Chelluri

The department, with support from the family and friends of Thyagaraju (Raju) Chelluri, has established an endowment that will fund an annual lecture, to be called the Chelluri Lecture, in Raju’s memory. Each year, a distinguished mathematician will be invited to give a lecture on his or her work or related work. Our hope is to have the first annual Chelluri Lecture in spring 2006.

This annual lecture series will be presented in memory of Raju, who graduated magna cum laude from Cornell with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1999. Raju was a brilliant student, a gifted scholar, and a wonderful human being who died on August 21, 2004 at the age of 26, shortly after completing all requirements for the Ph.D. in Mathematics at Rutgers University. He wrote a thesis called Equidistribution of the Roots of Quadratic Congruences under the supervision of H. Iwaniec. He will be awarded a Ph.D. posthumously.
—posted December 3, 2004

Welcome New Faculty and Graduate Students!

Department faculty, staff and graduate students will gather on Wednesday, September 1st at 4:00 PM in the Mathematics Department lounge to welcome new faculty and graduate students and to celebrate the beginning of the new academic year. Mark your calendar!
— posted August 18, 2004

Last modified:January 15, 2013