2001 K-State Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics
Lectures by a distinguished mathematician and thirteen alumni were the highlights of the 2001 Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics at Kansas State University.Eugene Luks, a distinguished mathematician from the University of Oregon, visited Kansas State and gave a lecture on The 15 puzzle, parallel computation, and 15000-page proofs. For his innovations in graph isomorphism and related issues, Professor Luks was awarded the Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize in Discrete Mathematics by the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society.
Edward Armbrust, classes of '63 and '65, gave a talk entitled K-12 mathematics education in Washington State and Russia, and other topics in which he discussed math questions from the Washington Assessment of Student Learning and mathematics instruction in classrooms in Khabarovsk, Russia. Edward taught public school in Rainier, Washington from 1967-1997. He is now working as a youth coordinator for a church in Olympia. Alice Boschmann (Harmon), classes of '97 and '99, showed how to do Unconstrained nonlinear optimization in Maple. She demonstrated, explained, and provided geometric motivation for the steepest-descent, Newton, and quasi-Newton methods. Alice is a manager at the European headquarters of American Express in London. Donald Brining, class '69, told why Getting to the top is more than just being the best mathematician. He described ten factors necessary for success in both business and technical fields. Donald served from 1969 to 1989 in the United States Air Force as a computer systems analyst, Director of Systems Technology, Director of Information Systems Engineering and Commander of a Communications Squadron. Beginning in 1989, he served successively as Director of Data Processing, then Director of Central Services, and now County Administrator for Saint Lawrence county in New York.
Patrick Finney, class of '63, spoke about Appropriate choice making. He reflected on how our choices profoundly affect the course of our lives, and he gave ways of improving our choice-making. He also described how to use statistics in an agricultural science career. Patrick is a scientist working at an Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Laboratory of Ohio State University. Xiao-Xiang Gan, class of '92, gave an introduction to Series, power series, and formal power series. He also told some stories about Gauss and Weierstrass. Dr. Gan is a professor of mathematics at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Neil Hill, classes of '98 and '00, spoke on My process of becoming an actuary. He described how his K-State experiences influenced his career path. He also delineated the academic preparation necessary for an actuary. Neil is an actuary and works for the Security Benefit Group in Topeka.
Krishna Khemraj, classes of '97 and '00, presented Mental math and the doomsday rule. He showed John Conway's doomsday algorithm and explained how it worked. Krishna is an actuary working for the Universal Underwriters, Zurich Financial Services Group in Olathe. Eric Lawrence, class of '98, spoke on Mathematics: Objectives and opportunities. What's in math for me? He discussed the benefits and opportunities in studying mathematics. Eric is now a math teacher at Garden City High School. Mark Lesperance, classes of '90 and '91, gave a talk entitled Who wants to be an actuary? Play the auto rating game! Mark is a Casualty Actuary working for Farm Bureau Insurance in Manhattan. Bernard McDonald, class of '64, discussed The National Science Foundation and careers in math in the government. He also gave some personal recollections of the tragedy which occurred last September 11. From 1968-1984, Dr. McDonald was a member of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma and rose to the rank of Professor and Chair. He currently is Executive Officer/Deputy Division Director for the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Dr. McDonald received the Distinguished KSU Mathematics Alumnus Award.
Don Myers, class of '55, asked Aren't you glad you are a math major and what will you be doing thirty years from now? He told how majoring in math opens up tremendous opportunities which can lead to a fulfilling and productive life. He also described his research assaying cores in open pit copper mining. He now is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In 1991, Dr. Myers received the Distinguished KSU Mathematics Alumnus Award. Jeff Poet, class of '91, gave a presentation entitled Good math doesn't have to be difficult: Can factoring quadratics possibly be interesting? He showed some lovely factorization patterns which he generalized. Dr. Poet is professor and Chair of the mathematics department at Ottawa University. Paul Schuette, class of '86, discussed When is mathematics applied? He gave a truly down to earth application of mathematics by showing that many diverse phenomena obey a rank-size rule. Dr. Schuette is professor of mathematics at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville.