2016-17 News

Dr. Lu was awarded the Chambliss Faculty Research Award; inaugurated in 2004 through a gift from Dr. Carlson R. Chambliss, professor emeriti of physical science, the award is meant to recognize the very highest achievement in research and scholarship and can be awarded only once within a person's career.

Dr. Wong was awarded the John P. Schellenberg Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.  This award was established by John P. Schellenberg, emeriti professor of physical science, faculty alumni, and friends to recognize an early career faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding work.

AUGUST 16-18, 2017

Eric Landquist, Yun Lu and Francis J. Vasko, Department of Mathematics, and KU Mathematics students Mason Smith and Daniel Steinberg, the only undergraduate students invited to present, gave talks at the Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications (MOPTA 2017) Conference at Lehigh University, August 16-18. 

JULY 29, 2017

Joseph Ritzko and Daniel Steinberg, both Mathematics and Physics double majors, presented their research, "Tame the Flame: Utilizing Methane as a Fuel Source," at MathFest, the annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, in Chicago on July 29. They used a linear programming model to determine the strategy for the Kutztown Wastewater Treatment Plant to maximize savings through the collection and burning of the methane produced in the plant's digester tank. Their work was supported through PIC Math: Preparation for Industrial Careers in the Mathematical Sciences.

JUNE 2017

Diego Manzano-Ruiz, a mathematics and philosophy major, and Dr. Tony Wong were recently recognized for the research they conducted last summer in graph theory as part of the KU BEARS grant program.

MAY 2, 2017

Kutztown University Radio (KUR) interviewed KU Math Professor Dr. Kunio Mitsuma, who discussed his story of what brought him to the U.S. from Japan and why international students should consider KU for their education.  

To listen, click on the embedded You Tube video!

Nathaniel Benjamin, of Zionsville, Pa., has been awarded a Silver Chambliss Student Academic Achievement Award from Kutztown University. Benjamin is a mathematics and secondary mathematics education major graduating in May. He received the award for his successfully completed research projects.

The bulk of his research has been a part of his Honors Thesis, which he has been conducting since spring 2015. For his project, he created his own three-valued logic system that generalized the standard Boolean operations of AND and OR. This research earned Benjamin a second place finish at the Department of Mathematics' Mugridge Symposium, an annual celebration of undergraduate research.  During his time at Kutztown University, Benjamin has maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average, served as president and vice president of Kappa Mu Epsilon National Mathematics Honor Society and been inducted into both the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society and the Delta Phi Alpha National German Honor Society.

Jiao Xu, of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, has been awarded a Copper Chambliss Student Academic Achievement Award from Kutztown University. Xu is graduating in May with a degree in mathematics. She received the award for her successfully completed research projects.

She has presented her research, which was mainly focused on probabilities, and her findings at the 2015 Fall Meeting of the Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware Section of the Mathematics Association of America and the Third Annual Larry Mugridge Symposium on Undergraduate Mathematics Research in spring 2016, where she won a gold medal.  Xu also received a Carole and Ray Neag Undergraduate Award for her research, a Department of Mathematics Scholarship, and has been inducted into the Kappa Mu Epsilon National Honorary Mathematics Society.  After graduating, Xu will attend graduate school and plans to be an actuarial scientist.

MARCH 16, 2017

The Math Kangaroo Competition is an international event, which is held annually on the third Thursday of March.  It has been taking place in the U.S. since 1998 and it attracted over 28,000 students nationwide in 2017.  Any student first through twelfth-grade qualifies. The competition questions are appropriate for the students' ages, and are interesting and challenging.  On March 16, Kutztown hosted this successful event with 53 registered students in this first group of participants.

JANUARY 11, 2017

The Department of Mathematics hosted a High School Mathematics Day for Girls.  Despite the inclement weather, over 60 female students and faculty from eight local high schools came to campus for this event. The goal was to interest young women in continuing to study mathematics and to pursue careers involving mathematics, the sciences, technology and engineering by offering role models and mentors. For more information, please click here.

NOVEMBER  2016

The team of Kutztown students Nate Benjamin, David Foley, and Jacob McCann earned first place in the 2016 LVAIC (Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges) team math competition, defeating teams from Cedar Crest College, DeSales University, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, and Muhlenberg College.  They finished with a very impressive score of 93 out of a possible 100 points!

NOVEMBER 5, 2016

Mathematics majors Zachary Kern and Diego Manzano-Ruiz each gave an oral presentation on their research results at the 3rd Annual PASSHE Undergraduate Research Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) hosted by Millersville University.  Zachary Kern's talk was entitled "An Empirical Analysis of Three Population-Based Metaheuristics for Solving the Multidimensional Knapsack Problem".  His mentors Dr. Yun Lu and Dr. Francis Vasko also attended the conference.  Diego Manzano-Ruiz's talk was entitled "Vertex Coloring Game on Graphs".  His mentor Dr. Tony Wong also attended the conference. 

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

The paper "The Generalized Steiner Cable-Trench Problem with Application to Error Correction in Vascular Image Analysis," by Dr. Eric Landquist and Dr. Francis Vasko of the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science graduate students Mr. Gregory Kresge (MS '13) and Mr. Adam Tal (MS '12), and researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Yifeng Jiang and Dr. Xenophon Papademetris, was presented by Dr. Eric Landquist at "OR2016," the Annual International Conference of the German Operations Research Society in Hamburg, Germany on September 1, 2016, at the invitation of one of the session chairs. Their article introduced a new computationally hard problem and efficient solution heuristics, motivated by its application to automating error correction in CT scans.