Graduate Students Continue to Collect Awards

Jamie Golden and RJ Braun

June 2019

The graduate students in the Department of Mathematical Sciences have had a very good year.  They have earned a wide array of awards from both the Department and the University.

The University Dissertation Fellow was awarded to Hasan Eruslu (advisors: Francisco-Javier Sayas/Peter Monk). This award was established by the Office of the Provost to support Ph.D. students completing their dissertation.

The University Doctoral Fellow was awarded to Shukai Du (F-J Sayas/P Monk). This award is based on academic achievement as well as evidence of professional commitment and potential contributions to the student's field of study since being admitted to their doctoral program.

Professional Development Awards were granted to the following students:  Rayanne Luke (Richard Braun), Nicholas Russell (Louis Rossi), Chuan Bi (Yvonne Ou), Seth Cowall (Pamela Cook) and Shukai Du (F-J Sayas/P Monk). The purpose of these awards is to support student travel to conferences where they will present their work.

The Excellence in Teaching Award from the University Faculty Senate in 2018-19 was awarded to Navid Mirzaei (Pak-Wing Fok).  He follows in the footsteps of Hasan Eruslu (F-J Sayas/P Monk), who won the award the previous year. This award notices those striving to become not just great mathematicians, but great math teachers as well.

Graduate Scholar Awards have been given to three students in recent years. Michael Bush (Constanze Liaw) is finishing his second and final year of his award.  Melissa Fuentes (Felix Lazebnik) and Lucas Quintero (P Cook) were both renewed for a second year, and the renewal continues until summer 2020.  These competitive awards support each student for 12 months and are based on academic achievements as well as membership in historically underrepresented groups.

The Wenbo Li Scholarship for 2019 was won by Samuel Cogar for his single-authored paper on "A modified transmission eigenvalue problem for scattering by a partially coated crack." His Ph.D. thesis advisors were David Colton and Peter Monk.  This scholarship is awarded each year to the graduate student within the Department who has written an outstanding research paper in Mathematical Sciences. 

Poster prize winners at our annual Winter Research Symposium in February 2019 were as follows:  First place, Hasan Eruslu (F-J Sayas) for "TRCQ for Viscoelastic Waves;" second place, Shukai Du (F-J Sayas) for "HDG for Transient Elastic Waves;" third place, Rayanne Luke (R Braun) for "Parameter Estimation for Tear Film Breakup Dynamics." These students were chosen for their exceptional work and were awarded a travel allowance. Their works may be viewed in the Ewing Hall first floor display across from the elevators. 

The departmental teaching award, the Baxter-Sloyer award, was awarded to Nicholas Russell (Louis Rossi). This award is given to a graduate student teaching assistant, in Mathematical Sciences, who has demonstrated superior effectiveness in teaching, and in the performance of their responsibilities. 

The SIAM Outstanding Efforts and Achievements Award went to Nicholas Russell (L Rossi). This award, issued by SIAM's headquarters, recognizes students for outstanding service and contributions to the UD SIAM Student Chapter. 

The Association for Women in Mathematics student chapter here at UD has travel awards to help students present their work at conferences.  This year's winners were Seth Cowall (P Cook) and Melissa Fuentes (Felix Lazebnik).

The College of Arts and Sciences Competitive Graduate Student Travel Grant was awarded to Mingchang Ding (Jingmei Qiu). This grant is intended to support travel expenses associated with the student's research project. 

Summer support is often from grants or teaching, but the following students won support for Summer 2019 from the Office of Graduate and Professional Education: Gautam Aishwarya (Mokshay Madiman), Li-An Chen (Qing Xiang), and Emily Bergman (F Lazebnik). This support will provide students with travel funds to be used over the summer. 

The faculty in the Department are proud of the accomplishments of our students and are happy that they are getting recognized!