University of Utah April 2011Department of Mathematics Volume 10, Number 3

Aft e rma thLast Message from theDeparting Chairby Aaron Bertram

• It has been an honor and aprivilege to serve as yourDepartment Chair for thepast six years. We’ve beenthrough a lot in that timebut the economic crisis thatstarted three years ago andpersists to this day stands

out as by far the greatest challenge. We weatheredthis together and I am very proud that we wereable to emerge intact without compromisingeither our research or teaching missions. I wasparticularly happy to be able to avoid staffreductions over the past two years, and indeed Iam now hopeful that our substantial budget cutswill not adversely affect the Department in thelong run.

In the meantime some of our Departmentalgraybeards have embarked on new adventures.Bob Brooks, Tim Folias, Steve Gersten, FletcherGross, Paul Roberts and Klaus Schmitt fullyretired while Grant Gustafson, Joe Taylorand Don Tucker eased into phased retirement.Jim Carlson officially severed his ties with theDepartment to direct the Clay Institute andShekhar Khare departed for UCLA. AnneRoberts and Dennis Allison also retired fromour mathematics education group while onthe staff side Kathleen Moore and NancyDemello (definitely not graybeards) moved onto other challenges, Susan Hendry and AnnettaCochran went into well-deserved and much-enjoyed retirement, and Eleen Collins was sadlytaken from us before she could enjoy her ownretirement.

On the other end the Department made six tenure-track hires in these six years. Kevin Wortman andDan Ciubotaru joined the Department in 2007,strengthening the research groups in Topologyand Representation Theory, respectively. Thisyear Yekaterina Epshteyn, Fernando GuevaraVasquez and Christel Hohenegger joined our

Applied Mathematics community and nextyear Chenyang Xu will arrive as the newestWarnock Chair, joining the algebraic geometrygroup. Our mathematics education team pickedup Emma Alibegovic and Michael Van Opstalla few years ago, and next year will welcomeAmanda Cangelosi. And of course Hugo Rossirose, phoenix-like, from two previous retirementsto lead the Center for Mathematics and ScienceEducation. Among the staff we welcomed SandyHiskey, Stephanie Nuttall, Rebecca Burns, DellaRae Riker and Daniela Ciubotaru.

The awards and accolades won by our faculty overthe past six years are so numerous that I couldn’tpossibly list them all here. Some of the highlightsinclude: Mladen Bestvina and Christopher Haconbecame Distinguished Professors, Peter Alfeldand Ken Golden won the Distinguished TeachingAward, Firas Rassoul-Agha and Temmaso deFernex were awarded NSF CAREER Grants,Christopher Hacon and Shekhar Khare wonconsecutive Cole prizes in Algebra and NumberTheory respectively, Paul Bressloff won the RoyalSociety Wolfson Award, and Graeme Milton andKen Golden were elected SIAM Fellows.

You cannot run a Department of our sizesuccessfully without great help, and it has beensuch a joy for me to work closely with the beststaff on campus. I cannot thank Mary Levineenough for her dedication and her determinationto keep me on task and the Departmentrunning smoothly. The whole staff is incrediblyprofessional and warm-hearted. I hope everyonein the Department understands just how luckywe are.

Finally, before handing the reins over to PeterTrapa, I want to extend my thanks to all of you;undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs,staff, instructors and professors. This job has hadits ups and downs, and it certainly meant tradingoff a good part of the teaching and research thatI love for administrative duties that were oftenless pleasant and more stressful. But I don’tregret for a moment the decision to be your chair.Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Department of Mathematics www.math.utah.edu - Phone 801 581 6851 - Fax 801 581 4148

Ken Golden SelectedSIAM Fellow

Professor Ken Goldenhas been selected as aFellow of the Society forIndustrial and AppliedMathematics (SIAM).Ken will be recognizedat an awards luncheonduring the 2011International Councilfor Industrial andApplied Mathematicsin Vancouver, British

Columbia. SIAM is the primary professionalsociety for applied mathematicians worldwide,with over 12,000 members. The SIAM Fellowsprogram honors members who are recognized bytheft peers as distinguished for their contributionsto the discipline. Congratulations, Ken!

ServiceAwardApril Taylor has beenat the Universityfor ten years now.She began in Mayof 2001 as a full.time employee in theFinancial Aid Office.

April changed to a work study when she startedschool, and came to the Math Department in2004. She loved the people here and decided tostay when she graduated. We have been luckyenough to have her as our Associate Accountantsince 2006. April is an expert at arranging travel.She worked as a travel agent prior to workingat the University and really enjoys it. Aprilalso manages a variety of financial accounts,oversees computing equipment, departmentalscholarships and reimbursements. April is themost pleasant and friendly person you will evermeet. She is always willing to help and is a greatresource.

April has lived her whole life in Salt Lake.She met her husband, Tom, while working at asnowboard shop. They just celebrated their 12thwedding anniversary in January. They have twocats, named Minx and Bear, who are very loved(and spoiled). April and Tom bought a fixer.upperhome about 3 years ago, and it has been a money-pit since day one, but they love having their own

space. April has discovered the joy of gardening,especially growing her own fruits and vegetables.Her favorite hobby is reading. Classical EnglishLiterature is at the top, but she likes mysteriesand biographies as well. She has a tradition ofattending the Shakespearean Festival in CedarCity every summer that began when she was 13.She loves road trips, camping, snowboarding, andtraveling (especially to Europe and to see friendsin San Francisco). She spent a few weeks livingin Germany and has been a member of a localPerforming German Choir. She recently spenttwo weeks in Maui on a much-needed vacation.We are very grateful to April for all that shecontributes to the department and could notsurvive without her!

Off to the Arcticby Joyce LinIt hasn’t been too long since we returned fromAntarctica. During our expedition in Novemberand December of 2010, Ken Golden led a teamof mathematicians and electrical engineers inmeasuring electrical properties of sea ice. Wereturned with good stories ofantics on the ice, goodmemories of friends and laughter, and data takenfor sixty core samples! The electrical engineeringteam of David Lubbers, Erik Gamez, and JacobHansen led by Cindy Furse are currently workinghard on analyzing the electrical data, while Kenand I have been studying the fluid permeabilitydata and crystalline structure of the ice.

Our experience on the ice was amazing. Thestaff at Scott Base (the New Zealand station inAntarctica) made sure we were properly trainedfor survival in harsh conditions before taking usto the encampment where our experiments wouldbe done. Our living facilities had heat powered bya generator, which also allowed us to have a fullkitchen. We spent our time on the ice working inthe field, talking with the other scientists at theencampment, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.We took part of a day to go on a familiarizationtrip, which took us to Scott’s hut near an islandof nesting Adelie penguins and Shackleton’shut. These huts had preserved the supplies thatwere used on these early Antarctic expeditions,showing how these explorers stayed warm, howthey ate, and what scientific experiments theywere conducting on these trips.

Our trip was a learning experience. We didn’tknow what the facilities would exactly be like, soour three shipping crates were packed to the gills

Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, 155 South, 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

with the essentials (ice corer, salinity probes, etc.) along with potentially useful accessory items such as collapsible water jugs and tarps. For the upcoming May trip to the Arctic, Ken Golden, Christian Sampson, Cindy Furse, and David Lubbers will be able to streamline the equipment shipment better. Good luck to them in their expedition to Alaska!

Graduation! This year approximately 60 undergraduate mathematics majors will receive a baccalaureate degree. Fourteen will receive a Masters degree in Mathematics, 6 will receive the Master of Statistics degree, and 1 7 will receive a Masters degree in Mathematics (Teaching). Students receiving the Ph.D. in 2010-2011 are Julian Chan, Matthew Housley, Elisha Hughes, Loe Nguyen, Anna Schoening, Blerta Shtylla, Ben Trahan and Yuan Zhang. Congratulations, graduates!

'This is a time to ce(e6rate tfie yast witfi a(( its successes and tfie future witfi aff its

yossi6ifities.

Aftermath is published monthly during the academic year. If you have an idea or article to submit contact one of the editors:

Angie Gardiner, gardiner@math.utah.edu Nat Smale, smale@math.utah.edu

Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, 155 South, 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112