New Faces

December 7, 2017

Pye Aung is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences. His research interests are in commutative algebra and homological algebra, particularly homological dimensions of various complexes. He is working with Dr. Sean Sather-Wagstaff, and he is also teaching some undergraduate courses. Pye received his Ph.D. from North Dakota State University in 2015. Prior to visiting Clemson, he taught at the University of the Pacific in California and Grinnell College in Iowa.

Joe Bible is a new Assistant Professor in the Applied Statistics subfaculty. He earned his MS in Applied Statistics from Kennesaw State and his PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Louisville in 2015. After Louisville he completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. His research interests focus on methods for analyzing clustered longitudinal data. His collaborative work includes applications in the biomedical, social and material sciences.

Ben Jaye is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics.  His research interests are in geometric measure theory, harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, and probability theory.  After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 2011, he worked at Kent State University — first as a postdoctoral scholar, and then as an assistant professor — before joining Clemson.

Hervé Kerivin, a former faculty member in our department, has returned for a year as a visiting associate professor.  Dr. Kerivin’s expertise is in operations research, particularly in the areas of network and integer programming.  His home institution is University Clermont Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, France. In addition to continuing research collaborations with Dr. Margaret Wiecek, Dr. Kerivin is teaching (MATH 8140 this Fall and MATH 8120 in Spring 2018) and is also working with Dr. Taufiquar Khan and other university officials to explore possible exchange programs between our universities.

Jennifer Newton is returning to the Math Sciences Department after taking 5 years off after the birth of her youngest child in 2012. She is a life-long resident of South Carolina and currently resides in the Piedmont/Powdersville community with her husband, Matt, of 26 years and their three children, Tyler (22), Savannah (18), and Addie (5). In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, gardening, learning about herbs and herbal remedies, reading, sewing, and engaging in various craft and DIY projects. Jennifer earned her MS in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson University in 1993 with an emphasis in Operations Research. Her past teaching experience includes nine years as a math instructor at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC, three years as a high school mathematics teacher at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville, SC, and seven years teaching the business calculus sequence here at Clemson. In addition, Jennifer spent several semesters coordinating Math 2070.

Stephen Peele is a Lecturer in the department. Stephen earned his MS in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson in May 2017 under Dr. Jim Peterson. He has had an interest in teaching undergraduates for some time now and is grateful for the opportunity to continue to pursue this interest at Clemson. Outside of mathematics, Stephen enjoys growing plants and vegetables, particularly superhot peppers. He lives in Central with his wife, Briana, who is also a Clemson graduate and employee. They have two cats, Socks and Oyster, and two Holland Lop rabbits, Morris and Juniper.

Malcolm Rupert joins us as a postdoc on the Coding Theory, Cryptography, and Number Theory RTG grant. He recently graduated from the University of Idaho where he studied a theta lift construction of Siegel paramodular forms, under the advisement of Jennifer Johnson-Leung and Brooks Roberts. As an educator, Malcolm is interested in how active learning methods can improve the outcomes in his courses. On a more personal note, this native of Seattle enjoys coffee, hiking, and craft beer, preferably in that order.

Chang-An Zhao is a Visiting Scholar in the Mathematical Sciences Department from May 2017 to June 2018. He is an associate professor in the School of Mathematics at Sun Yat-sen University in China. His research interests are applied algebra and coding theory. He is working with Shuhong Gao in the field of coding theory.