TOP NEWS:
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We welcome two new professors to our department this year, Dr. Fumiko Futamura and Dr. Alison Marr. (10/10/2007)
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Students place high in regional ACM programming contest Students participate in the 2007 ACM South Central USA Programming Contest at Baylor University. (11/3/2007)
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We welcome two new tenure-track assistant professors, Dr. Fumiko Futamura and Dr. Alison Marr.
Dr. Futamura's research interests include frame theory and operator theory, specifically dealing with the theory behind applications in signal processing. In particular, she is investigating the mathematical theory behind listening in on conversations and reconstructing images that are riddled with holes. In 2007, she published two papers in these areas and received the Vanderbilt graduate student teaching award.
In addition to mathematics, Dr. Futamura also has a strong interest in art. In 2006, she participated in an art project with the feminist artist Judy Chicago which resulted in a show dealing with a number of issues including the emotional trauma of rape, political silencing, and religion and homosexuality. Dr. Futamura created eight 5 ft by 3 ft oil paintings representing the ways in which she was stereotyped as a female Japanese-American both in the US and Japan. Her other interests include sitting for hours in bookstores, playing with legos and eating good food with her husband.
Dr. Futamura received her Ph.D in mathematics in 2007 from Vanderbilt University. She received her M.S. from Vanderbilt and her B.A. in mathematics with an art minor from the University of Louisville.
Dr. Alison Marr joined the department in the Fall of 2007 after completing her Ph.D. in mathematics in May 2007 at Southern Illinois University. She has an Honors B.A. in mathematics with a minor in computer science from Murray State University and a M.S. in mathematics from Texas A&M University (Whoop!).
Her research interests include graph theory and combinatorics. Currently, she is working on problems involivng labelings of directed graphs. She is also interested in exploring topics in math education.
In her spare time, Dr. Marr enjoys playing the saxophone, spending time with her cat, and watching various TV shows including college basketball games. Dr. Marr is originally from Elizabethtown, KY.
Nine students worked extraordinarily hard (from 2pm to 5pm every Friday afternoon) in preparation for the contest. SU took three teams this year to the ACM South Central Regional Programming Contest at Texas A&M.
l-to-r: Tommy Rogers, Carl West, Nathan Lindzey, Bobby Potter, Stephen Foster, Rick Denman, Sarah Doty, Nick Ashford, Lane Hill, Michael Party
The "su root" team of Stephen Foster, Bobby Potter, and Tommy Rogers completed 5
problems, finishing in sixth place overall. This is the strongest showing ever by a
Southwestern team at the South Central Regional and the first one of our teams has
finished in the top 10 (our previous best finish was a 12th place). This team was also
the top finisher in the "undergrad only" category, which includes all schools with no
graduate degree programs.
The "su equipo" team of Michael Party, Nathan Lindzey, and Carl West solved one
problem. After starting almost an hour late because Carl and Nathan were taking the GRE
CS Subject exam, they had several other problems solved that they could not get past some
of the judges's extreme test cases. If they had been able to complete any two of these,
they would have placed in the top 20.
The "su pirata informatico" team of Sarah Doty, Lane Hill, and Nick Ashford also did a
fine job. They also only managed to get one problem past the judges's extreme test cases,
but had several other problems essentially solved except for some extreme case. They
also would have placed quite high with two more solutions accepted by the judges.
Rick Denman (coach)
In celebration of that crazy irrational, transcendental number pi=3.1415926...., on March 14, the Southwestern chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon and the Math Club will be hosting a Pi Day festival, location TBA. More information will be available later in the year.
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