Front Page News

Dr. Horst Beyer's lecture notes "Beyond partial differential equations. On linear and quasi-linear abstract hyperbolic evolution equations"
[Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1898. Berlin: Springer (2007)] was included in the sixteen highlights selected by the editors of Zentralblatt MATH for 2008.  Dr. Beyer's work is the outgrowth of a two-semester course on linear semigroup methods, linear and quasi-linear hyperbolic systems of partial differential equations, and the abstract theory of evolution equations, given at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

The Editorial Committee of the American Mathematical Society has reappointed Professor Susanne Brenner to a second term as an editor of Mathematics of Computation. She joined this editorial board as Associate Editor in 1993 and have served continuously since then.

Professor Robert Lipton was elected to the board of directors of the Society of Engineering Science (SES). The SES is an interdisciplinary scientific society awarding very prestigious and highly recognized prizes for singular and lifetime achievements in the engineering sciences.

Michael Malisoff, associate professor in mathematics, has been appointed an associate editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Control Systems Society, or IEEE-CSS, Conference Editorial Board. The IEEE-CSS is a major professional organization in control engineering and has over 10,000 members worldwide. Malisoff is also an associate editor for the International Journal of Differential Equations. He was also selected as an associate editor for the journals “Automatica,” and for “Systems and Control Letters,” which both rank in the top 10 according to the 2007 Web of Knowledge Automation and Control Systems Journals impact factors. Malisoff has 50 publications in mathematical control theory and control engineering and is currently supported by an NSF Mathematical Sciences Priority Area Award.

Professor Blaise Bourdin, Gilles Francfort, and Jean-Jacques Marigo have published a book The Variational Approach to Fracture in the Springer Engineering series.

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 our Putnam team (Nickolas VanMeter, Tyler Barker, Rodrigo Farnham), and thanks to Jacek Cygan, the Putnam coach, and to Suat Namli, who assisted Professor Cygan and has left LSU after completing his Ph.D.

This year the LSU team finished 56th. There were 413 colleges and universities from the USA and Canada that entered teams. A total of 3753 students from 516 colleges and universities participated in the competition. LSU student Nick VanMeter scored 30 points and ranked 221. The median score was 0 out of a possible 120. Yes, that is correct, 0/120 was the median.

Professor George Cochran received the Mathematical Association of America's (MAA) Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics from the Louisiana/Mississippi sections of the MAA. Nationwide, twenty-four mathematicians receive Sectional Distinguished Teaching Awards. Dr. Cochran will be the nominee from the Louisiana/Mississippi section for the national MAA Distinguished Teaching Award and will give an hour address at the 2009 meeting MAA meeting of the Louisiana/Mississippi section.

Visiting Professor Richard V. Kadison's reflections on Irving Kaplansky (0.6MB PDF) appeared in the February 2008 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

Assistant Professor Scott Baldridge, who has dual interests in Geometry/Topology and Mathematics Education was awarded a NSF CAREER grant for his proposal “The topology of smooth and symplectic 4-manifolds”. NSF describes the “The Faculty Early Career Development” (CAREER) Program as “...a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.”