Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura wrote a grant proposal on behalf of the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin (JASGA) for the Japan Foundation’s Japan-America Society Capacity Building Grant Program. She currently serves as a board member of JASGA, a non-profit organization that provides Japanese classes, cultural programming, and events in the Austin area. She learned a great deal about grant writing through this process and valuable conversations with the associate program director. The proposal was accepted, and JASGA received $26,625 to support its programs and staff.

—December 2023

Three faculty members presented at MathFest, the national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, on August 2-7, 2023, in Tampa, FL. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Using R Projects to Explore Regression” in the Contributed Paper Session on Activities in Statistics and Data Science. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura co-led a four-hour Professional Enhancement Program, “Visualizing Projective Geometry Through Photographs and Perspective Drawings,” with Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “Resources for Faculty and Students” in the Contributed Paper Session on Teaching and Learning of Differential Equations.

—August 2023

Southwestern had a great showing at the 2023 Meeting of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America, held March 24-26 in Stephenville, TX. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr received the 2023 Ron Barnes Distinguished Service to Students Award, given in recognition of faculty who have distinguished themselves through service and support of undergraduate students within the Texas Section. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton received the 2023 Distinguished Service Award in recognition of faculty who have demonstrated exceptional service to the Texas Section. Shelton also served as Departmental Liaison and participated in the Business Meeting. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross participated in the Project NeXT session. President Emeritus of Southwestern University and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Edward Burger presented an invited plenary talk, “Paper folding for the organically challenged: Uncovering beauty and structure through effective thinking.” We had eight student presentations, one of which won an award, by 13 students and one alum. This was the most student presentations by far of any institution besides the host institution. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura supervised the following student talks: Zek McCormick ’24: “Applying Linear Algebra to Penrose Tilings” won an award for Best Student Paper Within a Session, Oliver Johnson ’24: “How accurately did Van Eyck paint the chandelier in the Arnolfini Portrait? A geometric analysis contributing to a decades-old debate,” and Isabella Robinson ’25, Oliver Johnson ’24: “Solving Sudoku Puzzles Through Linear Algebra.” Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr supervised the following student talks: Anderson Johnson ’24, Paige Thompson ’26, Kyla Gorman ’21: “Domino Antimagic Configurations,” Alley Koenig ’24, Casandra Nunez ’26: “Subtractive Edge Magic Labelings,” Kathryn Altman ’24, Lauren Calzado ’23: “An Exploration of Difference Distance Magic Graph Labelings,” and Aaron Garza ’26, Kaiden Salaz ’26: “What is the smallest area? A parabolic parable.” Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton supervised the following student talk: Emma Lewis ’23, Jillian Reese ’23: “An ODD Look at Theorems in Differential Equations.” This work was funded with a grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics, collaborating with a student team at the University of North Texas-Denton, supervised by Joe Iaia. A team of four students competed in the Math Bowl: Altman, Calzado, Koenig, and Jess Kazmir ’23, Yasmine Soto ’25, and Adrianna Flores-Vivas ’24 also attended the meeting.

—March 2023

Three faculty members and a student joined over five thousand mathematicians at the largest math gathering in the world, Joint Mathematics Meetings, in Boston, MA, January 4-7, 2023. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the undergraduate mathematics honor society Pi Mu Epsilon (PME) were among the fifteen partner professional organizations. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Isoperimetric solutions to a 1-dimensional problem within regions and log-concave density” in the AMS Contributed Paper Session on Topics in Analysis and Control Theory. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura co-led a four-hour Professional Enhancement Program, “Visualizing Projective Geometry Through Photographs and Perspective Drawings,” with Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr presented “Distance Magic Labelings of Directed Graphs” in the AMS Special Session on The Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Program (EDGE): Pure and Applied Talks by Women Math Warriors. She also participated in multiple events in her capacity as Co-director of EDGE. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “Cars, Competition, and Cholera” in the AMS Special Session on Stimulating Student Engagement in Differential Equations through Modeling Activities. Oliver Johnson ’24 presented “Perspective Analysis of Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait” in the PME Contributed Session on Research by Undergraduates. This research was supervised by Futamura.

—January 2023

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with students Sarah Friday ’21, Jordan Smith ’21, and Aaron Waclawczyk ’21, published a peer-reviewed article in the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications. The paper “Powers of Defective Matrices From Diagonalizable Dilations” resulted from research started during SCOPE in the summer of 2019. The article can be found here.

—January 2023

Three faculty members and a student joined over five thousand mathematicians at the largest math gathering in the world, Joint Mathematics Meetings, in Boston, MA, January 4-7, 2023. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the undergraduate mathematics honor society Pi Mu Epsilon (PME) were among the fifteen partner professional organizations. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Isoperimetric solutions to a 1-dimensional problem within regions and log-concave density” in the AMS Contributed Paper Session on Topics in Analysis and Control Theory. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura co-led a four-hour Professional Enhancement Program, “Visualizing Projective Geometry Through Photographs and Perspective Drawings,” with Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr presented “Distance Magic Labelings of Directed Graphs” in the AMS Special Session on The Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Program (EDGE): Pure and Applied Talks by Women Math Warriors. She also participated in multiple events in her capacity as Co-director of EDGE. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “Cars, Competition, and Cholera” in the AMS Special Session on Stimulating Student Engagement in Differential Equations through Modeling Activities. Oliver Johnson ’24 presented “Perspective Analysis of Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait” in the PME Contributed Session on Research by Undergraduates. This research was supervised by Futamura.

—January 2023

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with students Sarah Friday ’21, Jordan Smith ’21, and Aaron Waclawczyk ’21, published a peer-reviewed article in the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications. The paper “Powers of Defective Matrices From Diagonalizable Dilations” resulted from research started during SCOPE in the summer of 2019. The article can be found here.

—January 2023

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura gave a talk titled “Curious Invariants in Projective Geometry, and Where to Find them in Art and Music” at the Rice University Undergraduate Colloquium in Houston, Texas, on April 5. 

—April 2022

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura cotaught a virtual minicourse for instructors along with her colleagues Annalisa Crannell (Franklin & Marshall College) and Marc Frantz (Indiana University). The minicourse, titled Gaining Perspective on Geometry: IBL Activities That Use Art in Projective Geometry, ran June 8, 15, 22, and 29 through the Mathematical Association of America virtual programming and covered perspective drawing, Desargues’s Theorem, the cross ratio, and perspective collineations.

—July 2021

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was active at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, with national meetings of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), and more. It is the largest meeting of mathematicians in the world. The meetings were held in Denver, CO, January 15–18, 2020.

—January 2020

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura coauthored an IBL-style textbook titled Perspective and Projective Geometry (Princeton University Press, 2019), with her colleagues Annalisa Crannell, of Franklin & Marshall College, and Marc Frantz, of Indiana University. The textbook introduces students to geometry through perspective drawing, leading students to discover ideas through hands-on activities, including drawing, analyzing Renaissance paintings and photographs, and GeoGebra constructions. The textbook also guides students to develop rigorous proofs for their conjectures and can be used as an introduction to proofs course for undergraduate math majors.

—January 2020

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was the inaugural speaker at the newly formed Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Club at Anderson High School in Austin, TX. She shared her experiences and reflections on getting her Ph.D. in mathematics as a Japanese woman and spoke about her research in math and art.

—October 2019

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with coauthors Annalisa Crannell of Franklin and Marshall College and Marc Frantz of Indiana University, published an article “An (Isometric) Perspective on Homographies” in the Journal for Geometry and Graphics (vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 65–83).

—October 2019

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was active at MathFest, a national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), held this year in Cincinnati, OH, July 31–August 3, 2019.

—August 2019

Professors of Mathematics Alison Marr and Fumiko Futamura coauthored and published a paper titled “Taking Mathematics Abroad: A How-to Guide” in the journal PRIMUS. This paper fills a gap in the literature on developing and teaching mathematics abroad, with examples and advice from the authors’ experiences teaching a variety of interdisciplinary courses in the SU London semester program.

—February 2019

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was active at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, with national meetings of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), and more. It is the largest meeting of mathematicians in the world. The meetings were held in Baltimore, MD, Jan. 16–19, 2019.

—January 2019

Five math majors presented at the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (TUMC), held at Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, TX, Nov. 23, 2018.

—November 2018

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science was active at MathFest, a national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in Denver, Colo., Aug. 14, 2018.

—August 2018

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura gave an invited talk titled “Perspectives of a Mathematician Artist” to around 90 high school students at the Mathworks Honors Summer Math Camp at Texas State University on July 13, 2018.

—July 2018

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was invited to give two talks, one on April 13 at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, titled “How to Mathematically Immerse Yourself in Art,” and the other on April 17 at the Phi Beta Kappa event (En)Lightning Talks Houston titled “When Artists Become Mathematicians.” The (En)Lightning Talk was a 5-minute talk, complete with a countdown clock and an M.C. ready to hit a gong when time ran out. Futamura finished her talk in 4 minutes and 58 seconds.

—May 2018

Thirteen students and four faculty traveled to Dallas, Texas, April 57 to attend and give talks at the 98th Annual Meeting of the Texas Section Mathematical Association of America held at El Centro College.

—May 2018

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura organized students and faculty to create a hyperbolic crochet coral reef for a table at the Hot Science Cool Talks event on coral reefs at the University of Texas on Feb.16. To prepare for the event, she gave talks on hyperbolic geometry and crochet at SU for the 107 Lecture in Mathematics and for the Art Association, and taught students, faculty and staff how to crochet hyperbolic planes that incidentally look like coral. Nine students, faculty and alumni contributed: Kari Darr ’19, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Linda DiLullo, Christi Ho ’18, Abigail Jendrusch ’19, Jacob Jimerson ’19, Chris Nissen ’18, Aiden Steinle ’18, Natalie Young ’19. Christi, Jacob and Aiden attended the event, teaching the public about hyperbolic geometry and how to crochet. The coral reef will be on display in the entrance to the Smith Library from March 20 to the end of the semester.

—March 2018

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura and Robert Lehr ’15 published a paper in Mathematics Magazine’s October 2017 issue titled “A New Perspective on Finding the Viewpoint” (90, no. 4, p. 267-77). The article uses projective geometry to give a new method for determining where a viewer should stand in front of a two-point perspective drawing to view it correctly.

—October 2017

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura presented a talk, “Fractals in Japanese Woodblock Prints,” as part of the Academic and Cultural Lecture Series of the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin in July 2017. This public lecture was presented at St. Edward’s University.

—August 2017

Four of our mathematics faculty, two students, and an alumnus were active at MathFest, a national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) held July 26–29, 2017 in Chicago, Ill.

—August 2017

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura and Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross took eight students to the Texas Section Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) at Texas A&M University-Commerce March 30–April 1, 2017.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton attended the Executive Committee Meeting and Business Meeting as Immediate Past Chair of the Texas MAA, which included duties as Chair of the Nominating Committee, and the Department Liaisons Meeting. Funding for this trip was provided by the following at Southwestern: Fleming Student Travel Fund, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and the NSF S-STEM grant.

—April 2017

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura published an article titled “The Image of a Square” in the February edition of American Mathematical Monthly, with co-authors Annalisa Crannell and Marc Frantz.

—February 2017

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura developed a TED-Ed video lesson on the Mathematics of Sidewalk Illusions, animated by Jeremiah Dickey. She developed the idea for the lesson, wrote the script and developed discussion questions and a “dig deeper” section.

—January 2017

Five Southwestern faculty and two students participated in MathFest, a national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, Aug. 3–6, 2016.

—August 2016

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science John Ross presented an exhibit titled “Geometric Bubble Surfaces” at the Thinkery’s Strength in Numbers event. The presentation encouraged the audience to engage with mathematics through soap films. Southwestern alumni Christi Ho ’16, Robert Lehr ’15, and Julia Sykora ’16 also presented. Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was a consultant for the event.

—June 2016

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was invited to lead a learning session on math and art at the Operation Math Girls Conference for high school girls interested in math at Sam Houston State University on February 20.

—March 2016

Four faculty from Southwestern’s Mathematics and Computer Science Department attended the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle, WA, Jan 6-9, 2016: Associate Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr, Associate Professor Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, Associate Professor Mathematics Therese Shelton and Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science John Ross.

Marr presented a talk co-authored with Futamura, “Math and Study Abroad: Two Examples from a London Semester Program.”

Futamura presented a talk co-authored with alumnus Robert Lehr, “Finding the Viewpoint at a Museum: A How-To Guide” on their collaborative research. Futamura was also a co-author with Annalisa Crannell and Marc Frantz on the presentation “The perspective image(s) of a square.”

Ross presented “Incorporating emails and discussions into weekly assessments” and participated in Project NExT sessions.

Shelton presented “Active DE with Inquiry and More,” participated in the Officer’s’ Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, helped lead the SIMIODE reception, and took a Minicourse on “R and R Studio.”

—January 2016

Associate Professors of Mathematics Therese Shelton, Fumiko Futamura and Alison Marr, and Visiting Assistant Professor John Ross attended MathFest, the August 2015 meeting of the Mathematical Association of America. Marr participated in a minicourse on “Creating Flipped Learning Experiences in the College Mathematics Classroom.” Shelton participated in a minicourse on “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,” and was invited to serve on the panel for the Project NExT Workshop (New Experiences in Teaching) on Aug 3, 2015, prior to MathFest. Ross is a NExT Fellow.  

—August 2015

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was invited to join the panel of advisors for NPR’s Studio 360 Science and Creativity Series for 2016. She will advise the national radio program on their coverage of math and creativity. In addition, Futamura’s co-authored article, “Dürer: Disguise, Distance, Disagreements, and Diagonals!” in Math Horizons will re-appear in the 2015 edition of the annual anthology, The Best Writing on Mathematics edited by Mircea Pitici.

—June 2015

This spring, Associate Professor of Math Fumiko Futamura gave two invited talks on “How to Mathematically Immerse Yourself in a Work of Art”—at Sam Houston State University and at the Infinite Horizons Lecture Series at Kennesaw State University.

—May 2015

Associate Professor of Math Fumiko Futamura co-authored an article in the Dec. 2014 issue of “Journal of Mathematics and the Arts” on a mathematical analysis of Dürer’s solid in his engraving, Melencolia I for its 500th anniversary. The cross ratio as a shape parameter for Dürer’s solid. 

—May 2015

In January, 2015, the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings were held in San Antonio. At the conference, Associate Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony gave a talk titled “Complete r-partite graphs determined by their domination polynomial” in the MAA General Contributed Paper Session on Research in Graph Theory.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura gave a talk titled “Harmonic ratios: music and art in an inquiry-based Geometry course” in the MAA Session on Mathematics and the Arts.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr gave a talk titled “Some recent results on magic-type labelings of directed graphs” in the Pure and Applied Talks by Women Math Warriors presented by EDGE (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) session. Professor of Mathematics Kendall Richards gave a talk titled “On the Modulus of the Grotzsch Ring” in the AMS Special Session on Inequalities and Quantitative Approximation.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton gave a talk titled “POGIL Flu for Calculus: Influenza Data to Help Students Investigate Antiderivatives, Accumulations, and FTC” in the MAA Session on Inquiry-Based Learning in First-Year and Second-Year Courses. Marr and Shelton also gave a talk titled “Working to Improve Student Success in Calculus I Through Pre-calculus Support” in the MAA General Contributed Paper Session on Research in Teaching or Learning Calculus.

Southwestern student, Matthew Miller, presented a poster titled “Scoring Cardiac Health: A Model of the Relationship between Diet and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease” in the undergraduate poster session. Southwestern student Robert Lehr and President Edward Burger also attended the meeting.

—February 2015

Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura celebrated Albrecht Dürer’s mathematical and artistic prowess for the 500th anniversary of his etching, St. Jerome in his Study, in the November issue of “Math Horizons.” Her article, titled “Dürer: Disguise, Distance, Disagreements, and Diagonals!” was co-written with Annalisa Crannell and Marc Frantz and mathematically analyzes Dürer’s perspective drawing.

—December 2014