2006 K-State Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics
Lectures by eleven mathematics alumni and three of our faculty and staff were the highlights of the 2006 Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics at Kansas State University.Victoria Bogner, B. S. in Mathematics '05, gave a talk entitled The Stock Market Game - Rules of Play. She explained how the start up, growth, and expansion of a make believe company like Frank and Emma's Fruit Pies might be financed through initial offerings of stock and later sales of bonds and mutual fund shares. She stressed the importance of diversifying and rebalancing portifolios, purchasing equities using the dollar cost averaging method, investing in a Roth IRA at an early age, and making periodic inflation adjusted investments over a lifetime. Victoria is an Investment Adviser for McDaniel and McDaniel Financial Services in Lawrence.
Mike Higgins, B. S. in Mathematics and Statistics '06, presented a wide variety of Problems That Are Easy To Understand But Hard To Solve including Fermat's Last Theorem, the Taniyama Shimura conjecture, and the Twin Prime conjecture. He showed how some chessboard tiling and tour problems could be solved with some clever thinking and how some lovely Putnam and Parker math competition problems could be solved with the pigeonhole principle or some polynomial algebra. Mike is a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley.
Eric Farmer, B. S. in Mathematics '97 and B. S. in Computer Science '97, spoke on Applications of Mathematics to Cryptography. He gave some specific examples of cryptographic methods such as the Caesar shift cipher, the Vigenere keyword shift cipher, the Vernam-Mauborne cipher with plain-text length keyword, and the public key cipher. He said that combinatorics, linear algebra, number theory, and probability theory are important to many cryptographic applications, from online shopping and banking to military communications to national security. Eric has an M. S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois and an M. S. in Computer Science from John Hopkins University, and he is a mathematician at the Applied Physics Lab at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Thomas Hardie, B. S. in Mathematics and Statistics '03 and M. S. in Economics '06, gave An Overview Of Health Data Analytics and Working with Small Numbers. He described how math, statistics, and economics are used in health care settings. He talked about the movement of health care providers and foundations away from paper records to electronic records and the important issues of confidentiality and reliability of data that arise when manipulating large data sets and analyzing health care trends. He said that Meadowlark Hills in Manhattan was at the forefront of a movement by retirement communities away from a hospital setting to an apartment and neighborhood town setting. Thomas is a Health Data Analyst for the Kansas Foundation for Medical Care, Inc. in Topeka.
Gary Gabrielson, B. S. in Mathematics '63 and M. S. in Mathematics '68, talked about the Travels of a Kansas Farm Boy with a Mathematician's Eye. He portrayed some of the people and places he encountered while growing up on a Kansas farm and later when working and traveling in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He gave his perspective on measurement systems, numerals, and languages. He revealed three life lessons he learned: things change; even obvious assumptions bear looking at; and attention to detail is important. Gary is a senior systems engineer at Raytheon Corporation in Colorado Springs where he has developed computer based training materials for satellite controllers and operational software for space environment models.
Mark Lesperance, B. S. in Mathematics '90 and M. S. in Mathematics '91, gave A Delicious Introduction to Auto Rates and the Actuarial Profession. He described some great opportunities in the actuarial profession to utilize math and statistics in real applications. He outlined the types of problems that actuaries solve and used snack packs of M&M's to help explain the complexities of auto insurance pricing. Mark prices crop insurance and develops new products as a casualty actuary working for Producers Agricultural Insurance Company in Amarillo, Texas.
Jason Ross, B. S. in Mathematics '98 and B. S. in Computer Engineering '98, described How to Squeeze 300 GB of Movie into 4.7 GB of Storage. He gave a brief introduction to information theory including the Shannon Entropy Theorem. He compared various lossless data compression methods such as arithmetic coding and Huffman coding that make DVDs possible. Jason is a Senior Graphics Architect for Intel Corporation in Folsum, California.
Don Myers, B. S. in Mathematics '53 and M. S. in Mathematics '55, gave a talk entitled Mathematics, Dream Big. He said that math is one of the ways students can fulfill their dreams. He advised students to take all the math possible, acquire computing experience and knowledge, learn an application area, and develop speaking and writing skills. He described his research analyzing and modeling spacial data such as soil and groundwater characteristics in copper mining and cancer incidence and mortality rates in Arizona. Don has a Ph. D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, and he is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Anna Wetterhus, B. S. in Mathematics '01, gave a talk entitled Life and Work Balance of the Actuarial Student -- Is the Actuarial Profession for You? Her talk was an introduction to the actuarial profession from an actuarial student's perspective. She explained the main work in the two sides of the actuarial profession: reserving for future life and health insurance and pension payouts; and pricing auto, home, liability, and workers compensation insurance products. She described the typical actuarial student program, the preliminary actuarial exams, and the validation by educational experience program. Anna has an M. A. in Mathematics from the University of Kansas, and she is an Actuarial Assistant at Employers Reinsurance Corporation in Overland Park.
Brandon Grossardt, B. S. in Mathematics '01 and M. S. in Statistics '03, explained A Mathematician's Role in Medical Research. He described the marriage of medicine and mathematics in the fields of epidemiology and biostatistics and the mathematician's key role in directing medical research. He included detailed examples including case control studies, cohort studies, and clinical trials for research in heart disease, Parkinson's disease, estrogen use, and women's health. He also described recent research concerning genetic and non-genetic risk factors of Parkinsons Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases later in life. Brandon is a Biostatistician in the Department of Health Sciences Research in the Division of Biostatistics at the the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota.
Julie Stoner, B. S. in Mathematics and Statistics '95, gave a talk entitled Investigating a Mysterious Illness: Application of Quantitative Sciences in Public Health Research. She outlined how biostatisticians and epidemiologists use mathematics and statistics in the design and analysis of public health research studies. She described recent research about predicting insulin resistance in American Indian youth. She also led an activity to design a study to help identify the possible causes and cure for a mysterious illness aboard a 1747 British war ship. Julie has a Ph. D. in Biostatistics from the University of Washington, and she is a Professor of Biostatistics in the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Dmitry Ryabogin spoke on Zonotopes Are Projections of Cubes. Marianne Korten spoke on How To Be the Best Math Student You Can Be. Dmitry and Marianne are professors of mathematics at K-State. Karl Kandt spoke on The Career Fair, Internships, and Co-op Work Experiences. Karl Is assistant director of Career and Employment Services at K-State.