Mathematical Sciences

The School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences is happy to announce we are accepting applications for a new Masters in Data Science in Analytics.  This program is joint program between our School and the Department of Management.  The program is a 30 credit hour 100% online program.  For more information about the program and how to apply please visit: https://www.clemson.edu/science/departments/math-stat/academics/graduate/ms-dsa.html

Our School celebrated the achievements of our top undergraduate students at our annual Undergraduate Faculty Awards Ceremony on April 13. These are the incredible students we honored:

David Campbell: Faculty Freshman Award
Biraj Dahal: John Charles Harden Award
Killian Davis: Faculty Freshman Award
Katie Francis: Faculty Senior Award
Emi Graham: Faculty Freshman Award
Evan Haithcock: Faculty Sophomore Award
Jacob Honeycutt: Class of 1902- Samuel M. Martin Award
Mary Mell: Faculty Senior Award
Robert Melville: Faculty Senior Award
Laura Kate Reid: Faculty Sophomore Award
John Rowe: Faculty Junior Award
Kyle Seelman: John Charles Harden Award
Sam Smith: Faculty Freshman Award
William Sullivan: John Charles Harden Award
Carson Wood: Faculty Freshman Award
Sylvia Wu: Sue King Dunkle Award
Dora Yang: John Charles Harden Award

Clemson Mathematical Sciences is excited to announce the following new new members of the department. Please join us in welcoming them!

• Deborah Kunkel, Assistant Professor, Applied Statistics and Data Science
• Cynthia Ramiharimanana, Visiting Assistant Professor, Algebra and Discrete Mathematics
• April Thomas, Lecturer and STAT 3090 Course Coordinator
• Yu-Bo Wang, Assistant Professor, Applied Statistics and Data Science
• Qiong Zhang, Assistant Professor, Statistics and Probability

Deborah Kunkel	Cynthia Ramiharimanana	April Thomas	Yu-Bo Wang	Qiong Zhang

We also celebrate the following promotions and tenures in the department. Join us in congratulating these tigers on their fantastic accomplishments!

• Christy Brown, promoted to Senior Lecturer
• Timo Heister, promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
• Mishko Mitkovski, promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
• Svetlana Poznanovikj, promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
• Fei Xue, promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

Christy Brown	Timo Heister	Mishko Mitkovski	Svetlana Poznanovikj	Fei Xue

The quote ‘I am the last President of the United States’ is attributed to James Buchanan, supposedly spoken either shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln and/or the secession of South Carolina. In an analogous but more optimistic (and much less profound) vein, I can say that I am the last Chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Clemson’s Board of Trustees, at their July meeting, approved our proposal to rename the Department of Mathematical Sciences as the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, effective this Fall. The planned launch of the new School is set for October 1^st. Reasons for the change are summarized in this excerpt from the proposal given to the Board: The proposed structural change will preserve the “breadth” strength of the current department . . . increase quality, . . . better support ClemsonForward goals; enhance strategic positioning for planned enrollment growth; and increase competitiveness of the new school’s director role. A draft version of the bylaws for the new School is nearly ready for distribution and discussion; we’re in the process of identifying the websites, links, contacts, etc. that will need to change by October 1^st, and a search for the founding school director will begin soon. As most of you know I will be fully retired by the end of December, at which point Dr. Kevin James will become the Interim School Director.

At the College of Science fall semester kick-off meeting, each of the department chairs was allowed to share two ‘bragging points’. Choosing two out of many accomplishments over the past year by our students, faculty, and staff was difficult. I chose (1) the recent naming of Dr. Billy Bridges as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and (2) the fact that all seven of our PhD graduates who completed their degree in August are employed in positions spanning academia, industry, and government labs. I noted also that over the past two years we have seen full employment for all of our graduating PhD students.

Here are a few highlights from our department start-of-the-semester meeting on August 22^nd. Dr. Elena Dimitrova, newly appointed as the Department Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies, reported that currently there are 244 Math Sciences undergraduate majors. Fifty percent of those who have declared an emphasis area (84 students) have chosen Actuarial Science & Financial Math. Coordinator of Graduate Studies Dr. Taufiquar Khan announced that we have 126 graduate students (64 MS and 62 PhD) enrolled this semester. Of these, 108 are on teaching assistantships and 12 are on research assistantships. Five are supported by fellowships. Dr. Leo Rebholz, newly appointed as Department Coordinator of Instruction, shared that utilizing large SCALE-UP classrooms requires more teaching assistants, making his job of stretching the number of TA’s to meet this need especially challenging this year.

Speaking of large SCALE-UP classrooms, over the summer Cooper Library 200B was converted from a study room to a classroom with 16 round tables each seating 9 students. Before and after pictures are included here.

September 14, 2017	August 21, 2018
Cooper Library 200B Before & After Renovation

The image on the instructor’s podium tablet is projected onto three monitors per table, and on walls around the room are large monitors on which a live image of the instructor is displayed, along with multiple white boards.

At our annual faculty Welcome Back/Celebration of the New Academic Year on August 24^th, those present were fortunate to hear a presentation by Dr. Trudy Mackay, Director of the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics, and Clemson’s first and only member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Mackay provided an overview of her Center, and outlined a healthy list of possibilities for collaborative research available to students and faculty in our department. From the time that I invited Dr. Mackay and her husband Dr. Robert Anholt (also a great addition to our university) to this event, I looked forward to introducing them to the department, but not as much I looked forward to introducing the department to them. Based on their comments at the end of the evening, both were impressed by the talent and warmth of our faculty and staff members, just as I had expected.

I had the difficult task of speaking after Dr. Mackay’s presentation, and I wondered if people would run for the doors when I announced that I was about to show pictures from my summer vacation. To everyone’s relief, I only showed two slides, both with a purpose. The first one had pictures of a trip to the Southwest U.S. (part work, part fun) with Amy. The point of that slide was to indicate how much I’m looking forward to having more time, once I retire, to travel and most of all just spend time with Amy and our children. The second slide was a picture of a landscape block retaining wall that I’m building in our backyard. I used that picture to illustrate that walls can serve as either dividers or foundations/retention devices (and sometimes both). My hope and expectation is that becoming the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences will further shore up the foundation laid by those who founded and grew our department. I’m reminded especially of Clayton Aucoin, Ted Wallenius (who was with us on Friday) and others who had the foresight to build a graduate program, with both breadth and depth components, that is as relevant today as it was 40+ years ago when NSF funding supported the redesign of the masters and PhD degrees. In the months to come we have the exciting opportunity of carefully and creatively adding a few more blocks upon a well-laid foundation.

Lastly, I want to thank PhD student Peter Westerbaan who worked with newsletter editor Dr. Sean Sather-Wagstaff and our college communications staff to prepare this edition.

Congratulations to all of the following awardees!

Sloan Nietert of Mount Pleasant, a mathematical sciences and computer science double major, has been selected for a Fulbright Award, a program that aims to increase understanding between citizens of the United States and citizens of other countries. Nietert will spend the next nine months in Hungary as he was selected for the one slot available to conduct research at the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics.

Professor Neil Calkin was awarded the Douglas W. Bradbury Award in recognition of his exemplary service to the Honors College. Professor Calkin was honored at the Honors College convocation. According to Bill Lasser’s remarks at the convocation, Professor Calkin is “an internationally recognized scholar, and a gifted teacher, who brings to his students his love of mathematics as both an art and a science. Over the past eight years Dr. Calkin has taught one or two Honors seminars every year—on subjects ranging from The Nature of Infinity to The Greatest Math Problems of All Time. He has also served tirelessly on the Calhoun Honors College Committee for many years.” Furthermore, one former student wrote, “Dr. Calkin was able to make complex mathematical problems approachable to students with little mathematical background, highlighting the beauty and wonder of mathematics for a wide audience.”

Huixi Li received the Graduate School’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award. Only two of these awards were made for the entire university.

Faculty and staff members in Mathematical Sciences won a lion’s share of the 2017-2018 College of Science awards:

– April Haynes received an Outstanding Staff Member Award
– Marilyn Reba received the Excellence in Student Engagement Award, and
– Christy Brown received the Excellence in Teaching Award

Within the department:

– Assistant Professor Shitao Liu has been chosen as the recipient of the Department of Mathematical Sciences Teaching Award for 2017-18.

– Professor Jim Brown has been chosen as the recipient of the Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Service to Graduate Students Award for 2017-18.

Graduate Student Awards
– Drennon/Gabet Outstanding Graduate in Teaching Award – Huixi Li
– Clayton and Claire Aucoin Outstanding Graduate in Engagement Award – Garrett Dranichak
– Outstanding Graduate in Research Award – Mengying Xiao
– Outstanding Graduate in Citizenship Award – Todd Fenstermacher
– Outstanding Graduate in Teaching Assistant – Catherine Kenyon

Undergraduate Students Math Awards Spring 2018:
– Freshman Award – Anna Fox
– Freshman Award – Evan Haithcock
– Freshman Award – Laura Kate Reid
– Sue King Dunkle Award – Dora Yang
– Sophomore Award – John Rowe
– Sophomore Award – Biraj Dahal
– Sophomore Award – Graham Moore
– John Charles Harden Award – Sloan Nietert
– John Charles Harden Award – Jackson Wright
– John Charles Harden Award – Robert Melville
– John Charles Harden Award – Jacob Honeycutt
– Samuel M. Martin Award – Luna Bozeman
– Senior Award – Polly Payne
– Senior Award – Shannon Corcoran
– Senior Award – Sarah Kelly

Clemson is proud to have hosted several exciting conferences in the last year:

The 32nd Clemson Mini-Conference on Discrete Mathematics and Algorithms was held on the Clemson campus, November 4, 2017. The Mini-Conference has had a sustained run of over 30 meetings held every year since 1986. It is organized by Mathematical Sciences faculty members Michael Burr, Neil Calkin, Wayne Goddard, and Svetlana Poznanovik, with assistance from Clemson’s School of Computing. Its purpose is to bring together researchers whose interests generally lie in or near the intersection of these two disciplines. So far, over 200 internationally known researchers have given talks at this meeting.

The 2017 Mini had 31 registered participants and was funded by the National Security Agency (NSA). Forty-minute talks were given by the following invited speakers:

• Fidel Barrera-Cruz, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Linda Lesniak, Western Michigan University
• Georgios Petridis, University of Georgia
• Moumanti Podder, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Duane Skaggs, Morehead State University
• Jennifer Vandenbussche, Kennesaw State University

A twenty-minute talk was given by Amy Grady, Clemson University.

Information about the 2018 Mini can be found here.

Clemson University also hosted the 29th meeting of the Palmetto Number Theory Series, December 2-3, 2017. In addition to numerous contributed talks, the meeting had plenary addresses from

• Jennifer Balakrishnan (Boston University)
• Henri Darmon (McGill University)
• Cristian Popescu (University of California San Diego)
• Isabel Leal (University of Chicago, graduate student plenary address)

The meeting had 54 registered participants and was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Mathematical Sciences Department. Jim Brown was the local organizer for the meeting.

The 97th annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) was held on the Clemson campus March 23-24, 2018. Activities for undergraduate students included a Mathematics Treasure Hunt, a Math Jeopardy Contest, and a Graduate School Fair. There was also a Graduate Student Career Development Workshop during the conference, as well as the following special sessions:

• Special Session on Problems in Differential Equations and Nonlinear Analysis
• Special Session on Mathematical Experiences and Projects in Business, Industry, and Government (BIG),
• Special Session on Mathematics Identities and Inequalities
• Special Session on Engaging Activities in Coding Theory, Cryptography, and Number Theory
• Special Session on Enhancing Personalized Learning in Mathematics through Non-Disposable Assignments
• Special Session on Active Learning in Undergraduate Mathematics
• Special Session on Research Projects in Discrete Mathematics

The Math Jeopardy Contest was won by Clemson’s team, consisting of Joey Bonitati, Luna Bozeman, Biraj Dahal, and Trevor Squires. A total of 25 teams participated in the contest.

The local organizers for the conference we Meredith Burr and Mark Cawood. The conference had 542 registered participants and was sponsored by Cengage, Hawkes Learning, Macmillan Learning, Maplesoft, McGraw Hill Education, and Pearson.

Read more about the MAA meeting here.

Clemson Mathematical Sciences also hosted the 15th Mixed Integer Programming Workshop (MIP2018), June 18-21, 2018, jointly with the Department of Industrial Engineering. The meeting took place at the downtown Greenville campus. Local organizers for the meeting were Akshay Gupte (chair) (Mathematical Sciences), Matthew Saltzman (Mathematical Sciences), and Cole Smith (Industrial Engineering). Invited speakers for the conference were

• Bob Bixby, Gurobi Optimization
• Chen Chen, The Ohio State University
• Gérard Cornuéjols, Carnegie Mellon University
• Yuri Faenza, Columbia University
• Ricardo Fukasawa, University of Waterloo
• Matthew Galati, SAS Institute Inc.
• Andres Gomez, University of Pittsburgh
• Aida Khajavirad, Carnegie Mellon University
• Pierre le Bodic, Monash University
• Quentin Louveaux, Université de Liège
• Marco Lübbecke, RWTH Aachen
• Miles Lubin, Google
• Stephen Maher, Lancaster University
• Enrico Malaguti, Università di Bologna
• Jim Ostrowski, University of Tennessee
• Joe Paat, ETH Zurich
• Annie Raymond, University of Washington
• Suvrajeet Sen, University of Southern California
• David Shmoys, Cornell University
• Cole Smith, Clemson University
• Wolfram Wiesemann, Imperial College London

Academic sponsors of the meeting were Clemson’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, the College of Science, the Department of Industrial Engineering, and the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Federal sponsorship came from the Office of Naval Research. Industry sponsors were FICO, Gurobi Optimization, IBM, MathWorks, Mosek, and SAS.

Associate Professor Matthew Macauley’s research proposal “Toric partial orders: theory and applications” was recently funded by the Simons Foundation. Professor Macauley describes one aspect of his research in the Algebra and Discrete Mathematics subfaculty:

In 2004, biologist Joel Cohen wrote a paper titled “Mathematics is biology’s next microscope, only better; biology is mathematics’ next physics, only better.” Though the first part of this sentence has been well-documented alongside high-throughput technology, genomic data, and the emergence of fields such as bioinformatics and biostatistics, the second part is just as much ahead of us as it is in the rear-view mirror. Physics transformed mathematics in the 20th century with revolutionary ideas such as quantum mechanics and general relativity, carving out a new field now known as “mathematical physics”. Similarly, the 21st century is seeing new areas of mathematics being created from biological problems. One example of this is an area loosely called “algebraic biology”.

For an illustrative example of algebraic biology, we turn to molecular biology. A cell’s ability to regulate gene expression is crucial for maintaining homeostasis. Classically, this has been modeled using systems of differential equations derived from the laws of mass-action kinetics. Though these models are inherently quantitative, the fact that there can be over a dozen rate constants that are often not known within orders of magnitude, means that in practice, they are essentially qualitative models. In the last few decades, scientists have modeled a number of molecular networks using logical expressions. For example, “gene A is transcribed if enzyme B is present but repressor protein C is not present”. These logical expressions can be easily translated into a system of multivariate Boolean polynomials. This opens the door to using the toolbox of computational algebra to study biological questions. For example, computing fixed points can be done using a Gröbner basis. Network structure can be inferred by constructing a certain monomial ideal and computing its primary decomposition. If the “sign” of such interactions wants to be captured (e.g., activator vs. repressor), then one can use a new algebraic object called a “pseudonomial ideal” over a larger finite field.

Some people working in algebraic biology try to model or simulate biological systems using discrete or algebraic methods, with the goal of making and validating new biological predictions. For example, a gene regulatory network might be modeled with a Boolean network, or an unknown protein-protein interaction network might be inferred using techniques from algebraic geometry applied to time-series data. One of Professor Macauley’s masters students modeled the arabinose operon in E. coli with a Boolean network, and recently published this work in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. Other research problems involve developing the new mathematics that arises, such as the theory of pseudonomials over finite fields. This was the thesis topic of Professor Macauley’s most recent masters student. Such work answers a famous question of Bernd Sturmfels from the early 2000s: Can biology lead to new theorems? Yes it can!

Se the list of recent Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant awardees here.

Associate Professor Fei Xue’s research proposal “New Preconditioned Solvers for Large and Complex Eigenvalue Problems” was recently funded by the National Science Foundation. Professor Xue describes this research in the Computation subfaculty:

Eigenvalues and related mathematical tools are fundamentally descriptive in a great variety of scientific and engineering applications, including characterization of matrices, separation of variables in solving differential equations, identification of resonance or general heightened response to selected inputs, analysis of asymptotics and stability, and many more. In many circumstances, crucial information of a large complex system can be found by looking at a small number of eigenvalues of physical relevance of the corresponding matrix.

Reliable and efficient computation of such spectral information has been a central topic in computational mathematics and numerical linear algebra in particular for decades. In recent years, eigenvalue-related problems have become more diverse and challenging (mostly from linear to nonlinear), and the scale of the problems has been ever increasing. Classical algorithms have reached their limit and new numerical methods must be developed and analyzed to tackle these emerging new problems.

Our research concerns systematic development and analysis of innovative numerical methods for several important classes of large-scale and complex eigenvalue-related problems. For large linear symmetric eigenvalue problems, variants of preconditioned eigensolvers have been thoroughly investigated and widely used with great success in many applications. Recently, we find that the preconditioning and the solver framework can both be generalized significantly and integrated with great flexibility to solve a much broader class of challenging eigenvalue-related problems.

We will explore the idea of preconditioning in three main goals. The first is to compute eigenvalues through functions of matrices such as matrix exponentials and trignometrics. These functions map the eigenvalues of largest real or imaginary part to those of largest modulus so that they can be found much more easily and reliably. The second aim is to develop block preconditioned solvers that do not require accurate shift-invert matrix-vector multiplications to compute extreme and interior eigenvalues of large nonlinear eigenvalue problems. These constitute a major extension of the well-known techniques such as the preconditioned conjugate gradient and the Jacobi-Davidson methods to the nonlinear setting. The last goal is to compute certain eigenvalues of structured matrices in Kronecker sum or in companion form. The main interest is to fully explore the redundancy intrinsic in the matrix structure to facilitate computation in the original problem dimension much smaller than these structured matrices themselves.

The new algorithms will help enable large-scale eigenvalue-related modeling and simulations in many areas, including linear stability analysis, mechanics of materials, optimization of acoustic emissions, study of superconductivity, vibrations under conditions of uncertainty, and many more. Certain methods are also of significance to other areas; for example, fast exponential matrix-vector product is essential to the exponential integrator for solving stiff time-dependent differential equations.

Read more about Profexxor Xue’s NSF grant here.

Four Mathematical Sciences faculty members have recently taken leadership positions in the college and in the department.

Calvin Williams is now the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Excellence and Community Engagement. According to the college website, “Williams is responsible for student recruitment and success, helping to increase freshmen retention and six-year graduation rates for undergraduate students. He is also the lead for all student affairs initiatives, including everything from promoting Science outreach, to handling curriculum advising and strengthening teaching and learning methods.”

Taufiquar Khan is now the college’s Director of Global Engagement Initiatives in addition to being the department’s Coordinator of Graduate Studies. According to the college website, “Khan leads the efforts for study abroad, research abroad, exchange and related programs to build the College’s global impact.”

Read more about Calvin and Khan’s new roles here.

Congratulations to them both!

In the department, Elena Dimitrova is the new Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies, and Leo Rebholz is the new Coordinator of Instruction. Congratulations to Elena and Leo on their new roles in the department!

The Clemson University Actuarial Club has received several generous donations for reimbursing Clemson students who pass actuarial exams during the 2017-2018 academic year.

$2500 from AXA

$2500 from the Lincoln Financial Group

$1000 from Patrick Davidson, who graduated from Clemson University in May 2014. Patrick’s $1000 donation was matched by his employer Oliver Wyman.

Read more about the Lincoln Financial Group donation here.

The second edition of the Handbook of Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics was recently published by CRC Press. The nearly 1600-page volume was edited by a trio of editors including Clemson faculty members Douglas Shier (Emeritus) and Wayne Goddard. The handbook includes contributions from around 100 contributors including the following from Clemson faculty members:

• Joel V. Brawley: Vector Spaces; Linear Transformations
• Elena Dimitrova: Discrete-Time Dynamical Systems
• Thomas A. Dowling and Douglas R. Shier: Special Sequences
• Wayne Goddard: Computational Models
• Qijun He, Matthew Macauley, and Svetlana Poznanovikj: RNA Folding
• Andy Jenkins and Matthew Macauley: Genome Assembly
• Beth Novick: Linear Programming
• Douglas R. Shier: System Reliability; Matchings; Network Representations and Data Structures

The edited volume Algebraic and Combinatorial Computational Biology is scheduled for publication in September 2018 by Elsevier. The volume was edited by a pair of editors, including Clemson faculty member Matthew Macauley. It “introduces students and researchers to a panorama of powerful and current methods for mathematical problem-solving in modern computational biology,” and it includes contributions from Professor Macauley and Clemson Mathematical Sciences MS graduate Andy Jenkins.

The advanced undergraduate textbook Monomial Ideals and Their Decompositions is scheduled for publication in November 2018 by Springer Verlag. It was written by a trio of mathematicians, including Clemson faculty member Sean Sather-Wagstaff. “This textbook on combinatorial commutative algebra focuses on properties of monomial ideals in polynomial rings and their connections with other areas of mathematics such as combinatorics, electrical engineering, topology, geometry, and homological algebra.