VIGRE

Orientation for Incoming Grad Students

Orientation for incoming grad students is taking place from July 29 to August 8, with the longer period due to new regulations governing international Graduate students.

Several GT faculty have voluntered to give overviews of research interests. These faculty include Bunivomich, Harrell, Hill, Lacey, Landsberg, and Loss. These talks are open to all interested parties, but especially the current graduate students.

Talks are at 4pm, Skiles 255, July 29---August 8

IMA Program: Combinatorics and its Applications

The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) is sponsoring the summer graduate program in mathematics. The course will concentrate on Combinatorics and its Applications. This program is open to graduate students from IMA Participating Institutions. Students are nominated by their department head.

The program runs July 14 to August 1, and more information is available.

Kevin Khan Memorial Service

Kevin Khan, a GT graduate student, and native of Trinidad has
died, suddenly and unexpectedly.
A Memorial Service will be held Monday July 27, at 7:30pm, at
Morehouse Catholic Center

The Comprehensive Exam Committee for Fall, 2003

The Comprehensive Exam Committee for Fall, 2003, will consist of Profs. Andrew, Basu, and Carlen. Dates: 12, 15 September.

These exams cover Analysis and Algebra, at the level of an introductory graduate course. We expect that a large number of current students, 12 to 15 students, plus some new students, will sit for the exams.

These exams are to be passed by the second year of graduate study.

Blair Dowling Awarded Graduate Fellowship

Blair Dowling, (math & CS) has been awarded a three year graduate
fellowhship, which she will use at Princeton University, Mathematics.
Blair has been an outstanding student at Georgia Tech, with a long list of
honors and accomplishments. We wish her very well in the next stage of her studies.

The Department of Homeland Security has created undergraduate and graduate fellowships. The undergraduate fellowships are for rising juniors and seniors.
There were 51 graduate awards this year. The graduate awards come with
a monthly stipend [and a supply of duct tape ;-)].

This is the 5th graduate fellowship award received by a GT undergrad in the 2002-03 academic year. There werem, in addition to Blair's award, 3 NSF Graduate Fellowships to Nick Bronn, David Vener, and Andy Wand. And 1 Fulbright Fellowship to David Eger.

Quoting from the web site of the DHS, " These awards are intended for students interested in pursuing the basic science and technology innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission.  DHS realizes that the country’s strong science and technology human resource base provides a critical advantage in the development and implementation of counter-terrorist measures.  This education program is intended to ensure a diverse and highly talented science and technology human resource base to achieve the DHS mission and objectives.  Areas of study include:  physical, biological, social and behavioral sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. "

This is an opportunity that GT undergrads and grads will want to keep in mind for the future.

A Freshman Asks: "Math or engineering?"

An incoming freshman sent me an email recently:

"Lately I've been tossing the idea around of maybe
changing to computer or electrical engineering because
I'm afraid that I won't have as many jobs available
with a math major. I'm not sure if my fears are
valid, but I was wondering if you could maybe tell me,
in your experience, how sought after math majors are
and by which employers."

"What would be the biggest
differences between engineering and math majors, and
in which year would the curriculum for the majors
start to specialize?"

"Why did you choose to study
mathematics, and when did you realize that you wanted
to study math specifically? I'm not sure which path I
would be better suited for, so I'm trying to gather as
much information as possible to make my decision. I
appreciate your time in helping me, and I look forward
to seeing you either at FASET next week or when school
starts. Thank you very much. "

This is a whole load of questions!

The general trend is one that I (Michael Lacey) recognize from my time as the
undergrad director.

First, there isn't a big rush to choose. Most of the engineering
curriculum parallels that of Math, up through Diff Eq.

Second, it's natural from the freshman's part. The engineering
programs are very strong, and the message that they receive from
students is that there is no jobs in Math.

Third, the School of Math has a very strong record in training very high
quality students. Some of these highlights are availible at the
Undergrad Placement page. David Vener (spring 2001) and Blair
Dowling (spring 2003) won the highest academic honors on the Georgia
Tech campus. David is in graduate school at MIT. Blair at Princeton.

[This page is not more complete, since I have to rely on the 'kindness
of strangers' for it, and I have a few other things to do as well!]

And in 2003, GT undergrads won 3 out of 33 NSF Graduate Fellowships in
Mathematics. The only other university to get more than one award was Harvard, and they got 2.

Aside from the highest acheivers, the School of Math has a number of
very sophisticated and accomplished double majors.

Nick Bronn, (EE& Math) Cambridge Gates Fellow,
NSF Grad Fellow, at MIT

David Vener (Phy & Math) NSF Grad Fellow at MIT
(I think he was a Prez Scholar.)


Ganesh Sundramoorthi (EE and Math) In grad school at EE
at GT this fall.

Blair Dowling (CS & Math) (Prez Scholar) Princeton Grad School in the
Fall. 12 students are admitted to grad school, so getting in is
a mark of excellence!

David Eger (CS & Math) Fulbright Fellow. Grad school in CS at Carneigie
Mellon.

Nathan Bell (CS & Math) Doing a super Senior Project, Grad School in CS,
at Univ Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Clark Alexander (Math and Physics) is going to grad school at Northwestern.

Current Double Majors include

Steven Lansel (Math and EE)

Andrew Stimpson (Math and Physics)

Justin Melvin (ChemE and Math)

Derrick Coetzee (CS and Math)

These are just the names that come to mind. About 25% of the
majors are double majors. The most current list is at the
math majors
emails web page.

I'll stop here, since the math majors themselves have some strong opinions about this one. Maybe some of them will comment.

Mu Alpha Theta Lectures for High School Students

Georgia Tech provided six lecturers for the Mu Alpha Theta National Convention, in Atlanta, July 2003. Professors Ames, Cain, Duke, Lacey, and Lefton all spoke. These five were rounded out by Georia Tech Sophmore Steven Lansel. Steve presented his Torcelli's Law demonstration, which he and Brandon Luders completed in Fall 2003, Honors Ordinary Differential Equations.

A few photos are here.

The full list of projects that came out of the ACE lab is fun to go through.

Midsummer Progress Report on the REU

A midsummer's progress report on the VIGRE/GT REU program is up.
It lists some of the work that the students have done to date, and
some files. The work being done spans interests in geometric topology,
dyanmical systems, football, politics, and number theory.

Besides the REU participants, we have four additional undergraduates
pursuing research interests as well.

Some files, papers and jpg's are included.

Brody Johnson Leaves for St Louis University

Brody Johnson, one of our first year VIGRE postdocs, has left for his next position, St Louis University.

He is taking a tenure track position, back close to home. His one year position was filled with teaching, and research duties.

He has put up a nice webpage that details how he spent his time in the position.

We wish him well in his new position.

2002-2003 VIGRE Annual Report - Brody Johnson

I was a VIGRE visiting assistant professor at Georgia Tech during the 2002-2003 academic year. My mentor was Professor Chris Heil. I came to Atlanta after receiving my Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in May 2002 under the direction of Professor Guid o Weiss. My research interests focus on applied harmonic analysis, particularly in and around the topics of wavelets and frames. During my secon d semester at Georgia Tech I accepted a tenure-track position at Saint Louis University to begin in the fall of 2003. The VIGRE position provided me ample resources with which to travel and I was fortunate enough to make several professional connections through t he conferences I attended. One of my colleagues for the spring semester, Keri Kornelson (VIGRE postdoc at Texas A&M), chose to visit Georgia Tech for the spring based on a discussion at one of the conferences I attended. I taught section G3 of Math 2401 (Calculus III) in the fall of 2002 and sections B3 & B4 of Math 2403 (Differential Equations) in the spring o f 2003. In the differential equations course I created three Matlab projects (Fourier Series, Mechanical Vibration, & Electrical Theory) whic h I allowed the students to complete in groups of three. The students did a remarkable job on these projects. I had nothing but positive experi ences in each of my semesters teaching at Tech.

Papers, Preprints, & Drafts: Convolutional frames and the frame potential, (with K. Kornelson, and K. Okoudjou), in preparation, (2003). Co-affine systems in Rd, submitted, (2003). Wavelet transforms arising from oversampling, preprint, (2002).

Talks: Oversampling wavelet frames, Wavelets, Frames, and Operator Theory Workshop, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, M D. (January 2003) Coaffine systems in Rd, 2003 Spring Sectional Meeting of the AMS, Special Session on Wavelets, Frames, and T omography, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (March 2003) Multiresolution operators in wavelet theory, Analysis Seminar, School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech. (April 2003)

Informal Talks: (given in an informal time-frequency seminar organized by Prof. Heil) t> Failure of coaffine systems to comprise frames for L2(Rd) [2]. (August 2002) Frames in finite dimensions & the frame potential [1]. (~October 2002) Basic properties of almost periodic functions [3]. (~February 2003) Elements of sampling theory [4]. (~April 2003)

Conferences Attended: 2002 Fall Sectional Meeting of the AMS, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL. (November 2002) 2003 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Baltimore, MD. (January 2003) Wavelets, Frames, and Operator Theory Workshop, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD. (January 2003) 2003 Spring Sectional Meeting of the AMS, Special Session on Wavelets, Frames, and Tomography, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Lou isiana. (March 2003) FRG Workshop: Three Wavelet Themes, Boulder, Colorado. (June 2003)

References: J. J. Benedetto, and M. Fickus, Finite normalized tight frames, Adv. Comp. Math., 18, (2003), 357-385. P. Gressman, D. Labate, G. Weiss, and E. Wilson, Affine, quasi-affine, and co-affine wavelets, Beyond Wavelets, Academic Press, (2001). Y. Katznelson, An introduction to harmonic analysis, Dover Publ., 2nd Ed., (1976). E. Weber, The geometry of sampling on unions of lattices, submitted, Proc. Am. Math. Soc., (2002).

White Collar Jobs Moving Overseas

Manufacturing jobs have been moving overseas for years. Recently, the
trend of White Collar jobs doing the same has been accelerating. These include
software and circuit design jobs, but also include architecture jobs. (You don't have to be in Atlanta to understand the local building codes.)

Today, there is an article in the NYT about this issue, concerning IBM.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html?pagewanted=all&position=

.
(login required. You can use "gtmath" with password "Atlanta")

I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

With American corporations under increasing pressure to cut costs and build global supply networks, two senior I.B.M. officials told their corporate colleagues around the world in a recorded conference call that I.B.M. needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar, often high-paying, jobs overseas even though that might create a backlash among politicians and its own employees.

(login required. Use "gtmath" with password "Atlanta")

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Putnam Practice Exam is now a Class

The weekly Putnam practice session run by Dr. Wang is now a topics course:

MATH 4801WAN, Special Topics, 1 credit hour, CRN 88321, W 4-5:30
Problem Solving in Mathematics
Instructor: Dr. Wang
Location: TBA

What is the Putnam Exam?

The William Lowell Putnam Exam is an annual competition, on the first
Saturday in December. Approximately 3000 undergraduates take the exam each
year. The exam consists of two 3 hours sessions, with 6 problems in each
session. Each problem is worth 10 points. The median score is a 2/120. One
needs to practice to do well on this exam.
Each university can select a team to represent it. Prizes are offered for
the top teams, and best individual test takers. Over the 60 years of the exam,
many of the top participants have gone on to bright careers in mathematics and
the sciences in general. Several have gone on to win the Nobel prize in Physics.
(There is no Nobel prize in Mathematics.)
Each year, Professor Wang runs weekly problem sessions to practice for the
Putnam. The School of Math is offering one credit hour for participation in the
practice sessions, by signing up for MATH 4801WAN.

Questions?

Contact Dr. Steinbart (steinbar@math.gatech.edu) or Dr. Wang
(wang@math.gatech.edu). Also see www.math.gatech.edu/~wang/putnam.html