News
BLAST Conference Honoring Bjarni Jónsson, August 14-18
June 28, 2017 – The Department of Mathematics will host the 2017 BLAST Conference August 14-18, 2017. BLAST is a conference series focusing on Boolean algebras, lattices, algebraic logic, quantum logic, universal algebra, set theory, and set-theoretic and point-free topology. It circulates among different universities, and this is the first time it will be held at Vanderbilt. A list...
Award Winners Honored at Annual Ceremony
June 2, 2017 – Five students were honored for outstanding achievements at the recent Department of Mathematics annual award ceremony. The 2017 B.F. Bryant Prize for Excellence in Teaching was shared by graduate students Chang-Hsin Lee and Timothy Michaels. The award recognizes graduate teaching assistants who have demonstrated concern for and accomplishments in teaching, qualities that characterized the career...
Conferences and Workshops Benefit from Shanks Endowment
May 9, 2017 – In addition to the prestigious annual Shanks Conference and Lecture series, a number of other Department of Mathematics conferences and workshops benefit each year from funding provided by the Shanks Endowment. The Shanks Endowment was established in 1984 by the Shanks family in honor of 1956-1969 Department Chair Baylis Shanks and his wife Olivia Shanks....
Conference on Low-Dimensional Topology and Geometry
April 25, 2017 – The Department of Mathematics hosted the Conference on Low-Dimensional Topology and Geometry from May 15 to 19, 2017. Held in conjunction with the 32nd Annual Shanks Lecture, the conference focused on the close interrelationships between geometry and topology in low dimensions, such as in the study of surfaces and three-dimensional manifolds (3-manifolds). Emphasis was on...
Fifteenth Annual NCGOA Spring Institute, May 5-11
April 11, 2017 – The Department of Mathematics hosted the Fifteenth Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras May 5-11, 2017. The theme of the 2017 event was Operator Algebras and Logic. The Spring Institute is a combination of spring school and international research conference. During the school part of the meeting several mini-courses on a variety...
Jesse Peterson Named Chancellor Faculty Fellow
February 9, 2017 – Associate Professor of Mathematics Jesse Peterson is one of 12 outstanding Vanderbilt University faculty members who have been named to the 2017 class of Chancellor Faculty Fellows. The class comprises highly accomplished, recently tenured faculty from mathematics, engineering, and law, as well as the social sciences, life and physical sciences, clinical sciences, and humanities. Peterson...
Mathematics Major Named to Schwarzman Scholars
February 1, 2017 – Marc A. Chen, a Vanderbilt University senior majoring in mathematics and economics, has been named a Schwarzman Scholar for 2017-2018. The program provides full funding for a one-year master's degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Remembering Professor Emeritus Bjarni Jónsson
October 12, 2016 – Bjarni Jonsson, Vanderbilt's first Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, died Sept. 30 at the age of 96. He was internationally recognized as a leading authority on universal algebra, lattice theory and algebraic logic. Jonsson came to Vanderbilt in 1966 and taught here until his retirement in 1993.
Mike Neamtu Named New Chair of the Department
August 22, 2016 – Professor Mike Neamtu has been named the new chair of the Department of Mathematics at Vanderbilt University. Neamtu received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1991 from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He joined the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics in 1992. His research interests are in approximation theory, spline theory, computer-aided geometric design, and...
Conference Will Tackle Open Problems in Universal Algebra
August 21, 2016 – What are the most interesting and promising open problems in the field of universal algebra? Answering that question and beginning work on them is the goal of a two-week conference entitled “Structure and Complexity in Universal Algebra”, which will take place at Vanderbilt University September 19-30, 2016. Universal algebra is the study of algebraic structures,...