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RECENT
NEWS
Departmental Fission
The split of the department into "Computer Science" and "Mathematics and Statistics" has enjoyed a successful transition. Both areas are functioning somewhat autonomously. The Chair of the Computer Science Department is Leland Beck. Leland has a Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University and specializes in Computer Security. The Chair of Mathematics and Statistics Department is Sam Shen. Sam has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.. His special interest is in Climate Information. TOP The National Science foundation compiles data on total and federally financed research expenditures in the mathematical sciences at universities and colleges in the USA. As ranked by total expenditures in 2002, our department was ranked number 40 with a total of $2,586,000. This was a higher ranking than the University of Maryland at College Park, Duke, UC San Diego and Harvard. Most of this funding was secured by the Mathematics Education Division, but the other divisions are also increasing their totals. In 2004-2005, National Science Foundation grants were awarded to Ricardo Carretero, Joanne Lobato and Chris Rasmussen, while a California Postsecondary Commission grant is held by Susan Nickerson. Recently Antonio Palacios and Peter Blomgren were awarded an NSF grant that will be tabulated for 2005-2006. TOP Richard Levine, an associate professor of statistics, and four SDSU students received Fulbright Scholar Grants for 2006-2007. See details. At the end of the 2004-2005 academic year, Steve Pierce and Don Lutz retired from the Department. Marcus Greferath left the Department after the Fall semester in order to take a position at University College, Dublin. The Department welcomes two new faculty members this fall. Ricardo Nemirovsky joins the Mathematics Education Division, while Carmelo Interlando comes to Mathematics and Applications. Ricardo and Carmelo are originally from Argentina and Brazil, respectively. The international nature of the mathematical sciences is reflected in the fact that the Department has faculty from at least 12 different nations. Ricardo Nemirovsky has a background in physics, which he studied in his native Argentina and in Mexico. He became interested in science education and earned his Doctor of Education degree at Harvard in 1992. Since then he has been the co-director of the Research Center at TERC, an educational non-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Nemirovsy's research program focuses on an investigation of the embodied nature of cognition, with an emphasis on the roles of body motion and kinesthesia in mathematics learning. Proponents of embodied cognition hold that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body's interactions with the world and with others and that perceptuo-motor activity is embedded in the use and production of tools and symbols. Dr. Nemirovsky's pioneering research on the embodied nature of cognition and on the creative use of mathematical artifacts has been influential and has resulted in a number of well-cited papers. Over the past ten years, he has obtained over $9 million in external funding. At the national level and international levels, Dr. Nemirovsky has distinguished himself as a leader who works with a broad variety of researchers ranging from physicists to semioticians and most recently cognitive neuroscientists. Additionally, he has designed numerous mechanical devices and software to enrich the learning of mathematics, including several math-oriented exhibits for science and technology museums. Carmelo Interlando
earned his Ph,D in electrical engineering at the University of Campinas,
Brazil in 1994. He was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics in Sao
Paulo until 2002, when he came to Notre Dame University in the United
States to obtain his Ph.D. in mathematics, awarded in 2005. Dr. Interlando's
research is focused on two areas of applied mathematics, error-correcting
codes and cryptography. Error-correcting codes are used in electronic
equipment, such as cell phones and compact disks, to correct errors
that occur in transmission of data. Cryptographic codes are used in
communications to ensure that eavesdroppers cannot read information
transmitted between two parties. Dr. Interlando has worked on error-correction
algorithms and other computational problems in number theory. His recent
work concerns a fundamental problem in cryptography, establishing the
gate complexity for computing a function. In particular, cryptographers
would like to find a "one-way function," a function whose
gate complexity is less than the gate complexity of its inverse. Construction
of such functions would ensure the reliability of cryptographic systems
that most of us unknowingly use every day. TOP The year's outstanding students were named at the 2005 Commencement. The first of the honorees is Karlo Kovacic. Karlo came to the United States from Croatia in 1998 to play basketball and get an education. He came to San Diego State from Modesto Junior College, where he averaged 18 points a game and led the state of California in 3 point percentage. He played on the Aztec team that went to the NCAA basketball tournament in 2002. His love of mathematics led him to major in Mathematics with an Emphasis in Economics. Karlo took 12 upper division math and computer science courses and 4 upper division Economics courses with a GPA of 3.83. The most influential faculty member named by Karlo is John Elwin. John came to the SDSU faculty from Oregon State University in 1969. He retired last year and is now teaching for us half time. He was also chair of this department for 12 years. Our second honoree as outstanding student is Jennifer Faulkner. Jennifer graduated with a BA in Mathematics for single subject teaching and she is now in the credential program in her hometown of Bakersfield. She expects to have her own high school classes to teach next Fall. Jennifer came to San Diego State as a freshman and graduated in 3 1/2 years with a GPA of 3.96 in the major, meaning that her lowest grade was a single A-. In fact, her lowest grade in any course is A-. The most influential faculty member named by Jennifer is Professor David Whitman. Dave also came to SDSU in 1969, from the University of California at Riverside. This is the second time that David has won this award. He retired from the department in 2001 and taught half-time for 3 years. He is now totally retired, enjoying life in the mountains of East San Diego County. The following students
graduated with honors at the 2005 Commencement: Magna Cum Laude: Thomas Patrick McCormick, Joseph Mark Salehpour Summa Cum Laude: Sara Louise Berg Jennifer Megan Faulkner, Karlo Kovacich, Giavana Rene Neff, Geraldine Lynn Volz A total of 60 mathematics and statistics majors graduated with Bachelor's degrees this academic year. Exactly half were Single Subject majors. The rest were in the BA and the BS programs in mathematics and in statistics. Since 1997, the Department has awarded 406 Bachelor's degrees, 242 of which have been in the single subject waiver program for secondary teaching. There have been 192 Master's degrees awarded in Mathematics and Statistics Tutoring For the last 3 years, the Department has had an arrangement with Pershing Middle School to provide tutors who work in the classrooms with the teachers. This provides a valuable Early Field Experience for our students who may go into the teaching profession. We have hopes to expand the program to other schools this year. Ph.D. awarded The College of
Sciences has a joint Ph.D. program in Computational Science with Claremont
Graduate School. This is an interdisciplinary program with associated
faculty in several departments in the College of Sciences and the College
of Engineering. This year Patrick Longhini became the first Ph.D. graduate
in the whole program. Patrick is based in our department, and he was
supervised by Professor Antonio Palacios. Alma Morosz died on July 2, 2007. There will be a celebration of Alma Marosz life hosted by her daughter, Kathleen Marosz, on Thursday, August 9, 2007 at the La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Dr., La Mesa. A program and luncheon begins at noon. Kathie Ross is helping with the arrangements, please let her know if you plan to attend. Kathie's e-mail address is kross2@mail.sdsu.edu. For cards and notes of condolences, Alma's daughter, Kathy Marosz, can be reached at 6366 Estrella Ave., San Diego, 92120 and her son, Tom Marosz and his wife, can be reached at 6076 Camino Largo, San Diego, 92120.. A scholarship fund is being established in Alma's name. Information about memorial donations will be available at the service if not before. Dr. R. Deanne Branstetter, was on our faculty from 1955 to 1981. Dr. Branstetter was born on June 29, 1918 and died March 12, 2007. He grew up on an 80 acre farm in Curryville, Missouri. Dean graduated from NE Missouri State Teachers College in 1940 with a BS in Mathematics. It was there that he met Geraldine Gehrke whom he married and celebrated 62 years of marriage before her death in 2005. During WWII, Deanne served as a navigator in the Army Air Corps. After the war, he continued his graduate studies, completing his Masters at Vanderbilt University and his PhD in Mathematics at Iowa State University. His career then took him to Colorado Springs where he worked for the Air Defense Command as an Operations Analyst.After two years, he made a career change and moved his family to San Diego, where he taught mathematics at San Diego State College for 26 years. In 1967 he was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award by the State of California. The students at San Diego State also awarded him with an Outstanding Teacher Award. Professor Branstetter served as a member of the Statewide Academic Senate and served as Chairman of the San Diego State College Senate. Besides teaching, he served for a time as the Mathematics Department Chairman (1964-67) and as Dean of Undergraduate Studies for the College. He retired from teaching at San Diego State in 1981. Retirement led to touring much of the world and teaching as a guest professor at many universities.He taught Probability and Statistics for 10 years at Brigham Young University and also had assignments for teaching a semester in Hawaii and at Kansas State University.At BYU he was active as a volunteer in helping students prepare for their actuarial exams. BYU granted him the rank of Professor Emeritus and recognized him for outstanding service to the university. Services and burial will be in Derby, Kansas. Dr. Herbert A. Gindler, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Sciences at San Diego State University, suffered an apparent stroke on the evening of Tuesday, June 7, 2005 and died the next morning. Herb obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Minnesota in 1950. He came to the Mathematics Department at SDSU in 1960, and earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1961, under the direction of Angus Taylor at UCLA. Herb's area of specialization was Functional Analysis and Operator Theory. He also published papers on the teaching of calculus. For personal reasons, Herb became interested in Diabetes, and he organized a continuing seminar in mathematical modeling of Diabetes in 1983. Many of our faculty participated in that seminar, which ran for several years. Herb is survived by his ex-wife, Carol Geertz, his son Daniel, and his daughter Leah. A service was held on Sunday, June 12, 2005 with a reception of family, friends, and colleagues celebrating the life of Dr. Gindler. Dr. Saul
Drobnies, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Sciences at San
Diego State University, died October 22, 2002, at San Diego Hospice,
of lung cancer. He was born on June 8, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York,
and moved with his parents, Abraham and Lee Drobnies, to Dallas, Texas,
when he was five years old. He graduated from Forest Avenue High School
in Dallas in January, 1950, and briefly attended Southern Methodist
University before moving to Austin to attend the University of Texas,
where he received all of his academic degrees. He studied with the renowned
mathematician and teacher, R. L. Moore, and completed his doctoral studies
in 1961 under the guidance of Hubert S. Wall. Dr. Drobnies worked for
General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, and taught mathematics at San
Diego State University from 1963 until his retirement in the early nineties.
Dr. Edgar Howard, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Sciences at San Diego State University, died September 20, 2001. Dr. Howard was born March 4, 1932 and grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At the age of 19 he joined the Marine Corps and served as a radio operator during the Korean War. (His elbow makes a short but significant appearance in the movie "Battle Cry.") After his service, he returned to San Diego, where he had gone through basic training, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Physics (1959) and a Master's degree in Mathematics (1961) at San Diego State University. He then went into the Ph.D. program in Mathematics at New Mexico State University. On earning his Doctorate in 1964, Edgar spent two years at Idaho State University and in 1966 he became Assistant Professor of Mathematics at San Diego State University. He rose to the rank of Professor, and he retired in 1997. Edgar was a very fine teacher of Mathematics. He was named Most Influential Faculty Member by the outstanding graduating Math major 3 times. Additionally, he directed numerous Master's theses. Like Gene Lopez, who died in late 2000, Edgar was a fine teacher who was honored several times with awards for outstanding teaching. In their honor, the Department has established the Gene Lopez and Edgar Howard Memorial Fund. All contributions will be used to promote and enhance the "mathematical culture" of our undergraduate programs. Details may be found on the department's website at http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/math_stat/memorial.htm. Gene Lopez was born in 1926 and grew up in La Verne, California during the Great Depression. After serving in the army during World War II, he earned a scholarship to attend The University of California at Los Angeles. After earning his B.S. in Mathematics in 1951, Gene went on to obtain his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA in 1961, under the supervision of Magnus Hestenes.
Gene came to the Mathematics Department at San Diego State University in 1961. He was a gentle man whose quiet demeanor seemed to captivate students during his lectures. His classes were often on a list of most popular in the University, a distinction which is unusual for Mathematics courses. He won the TRW Excellence in Teaching Award in 1999. Gene retired from teaching in the Spring of 2000. The Department has established the Gene Lopez and Edgar Howard Memorial Fund. All contributions will be used to promote and enhance the "mathematical culture" of our undergraduate programs. Details may be found on the department's website at http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/math_stat/memorial.htm
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