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.

Thirteen students and four faculty traveled to Dallas, Texas, April 5–7 to attend and give talks at the 98th Annual Meeting of the Texas Section Mathematical Association of America held at El Centro College.

• Associate Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr co-presented “Starting Inquiry-Based Learning Consortia”
• Associate Professor of Mathematics Gary Richter presented “Revisiting a Limit as X approaches 0, the limit of sin(x)/x = 1”
• D’Andre Adams, class of 2020, and Daniela Beckelhymer, class of 2018, presented their SCOPE 2017 research with Dr. Marr titled “Choosing Your Own Adventure: An Analysis of Interactive Gamebooks Using Graph Theory”
• Morgan Engle, class of 2018, presented her SCOPE 2017 and capstone research supervised by Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton and Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Becca Edwards titled “Influence of ENSO on United States Gulf Coast Ozone Using a Surface Ozone Climatology”
• Sam Vardy, class 2018, presented a pedagogical talk supervised by Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross titled “Taking on Statistics with R(Our) Power”
• Taylor Axtel, class of 2019, Alan Carr and Charlie Ellison, both class of 2020, presented research supervised by Associate Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, “3-D Matrices: How Do They Work?”
• Music major Jacob Wilson, class of 2020, presented a musical composition from Dr. Futamura’s Explorations in Mathematics course “Frieze Patterns in Music”
• Aiden Steinle, class of 2020, presented research supervised by Dr. Futamura, “Staying in Shape with Real World Mappings.” Aiden won an award for Best Presentation in Geometry.
• The other four student attendees were Keyshaan Castle, class of  2020, Katie Dyo and Elyssa Sliheet, both class of 2019, and Bonnie Henderson, class of 2018. Dr. Futamura and Dr. Ross also attended the meeting, with Dr. Ross participating in the Texas Section Project NeXT meeting.

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.

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.

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.

• Sarah Friday ’21 and Jordan Smith ’20 presented “Diagonalizing the Undiagonalizable,” research based and expanding on a 2019 SCOPE project with Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura. Aaron Waclawczyk ’21 was a coauthor who helped extend the SCOPE work. The presentation was in the AMS contributed-paper session on algebra and algebraic geometry.
• Daniela Beckelhymer ’20 presented her mathematics capstone project titled “The Costs and Rewards of Pursuing Different Postsecondary Degrees“ as part of the undergraduate poster session. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr supervised the project.
• Marr presented “Choose Your Own Adventure: An Analysis of Interactive Gamebooks Using Graph Theory” in the MAA contributed-paper session “Tell Me a Story: Connections between Mathematics and Performed or Print Narrative.” D’Andre Adams ’21 and Beckelhymer are coauthors.  The presentation was based on their 2017 SCOPE research and their subsequent publication.
• Marr coorganized the MAA contributed-paper session on re-envisioning the calculus sequence with coorganizers Robin Cruz, College of Idaho; Tom Halverson, Macalester College; Joel Kilty, Centre College; Alex M. McAllister, Centre College; and Chad Topaz, Williams College.
• Marr was a coauthor of the talk “Calculus: Origins, Reforms, and New Directions” with Robin Cruz, College of Idaho; Tom Halverson, Macalester College; Joel Kilty, Centre College; Alex M. McAllister, Centre College; and Chad Topaz, Williams College.
• Marr and Assistant Professor of Mathematics John D. Ross presented the preliminary report “A Re-Envisioning of the Calculus Sequence for the Modern Student” with coauthors Joel Kilty, Centre College, and Alex M. McAllister, Centre College.
• Ross presented “Exploring Big Ideas in Calculus 1 through Bite-Sized IBL Lessons” in the MAA contributed-paper session on inquiry-based learning and teaching.
• Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton copresented “Building Community through Systemic Initiative for Modeling Investigations and Opportunities with Differential Equations (SIMIODE)” in the MAA poster session on projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education. Her coauthors were the coprincipal investigators of their NSF grant: Brian Winkel, SIMIODE and emeritus professor from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; Richard C. Harwood, Newberg University; Audrey Malagon, Virginia Wesleyan University; and Patrice Tiffany, Manhattan College. The NSF grant partly funded Shelton’s attendance. Shelton served on the SIMIODE Board of Contributing Advisors, as well as participated in a meeting of her NSF grant coprincipal investigators.
• Shelton coorganized the AMS special session “Wall-to-all Modeling Activities in Differential Equations Courses.” Her coorganizers were Janet Fierson, La Salle University, and Brian Winkel, SIMIODE.
• Shelton participated in the meeting of the national MAA Committee on Sessions of Contributed Papers.
• Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Safia Chettih presented the preliminary report “A Combinatorial Model for an Honest ∞-Operad” in the AMS special session on computational and categorical methods in homotopy theory. Her coauthors were L. Bonatto, University of Oxford; A. Linton, University of Southampton; S. Raynor, Macquarie University; M. Roberston, University of Melbourne; and N. Wahl, University of Copenhagen.
• Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics John M. Osborn also attended.