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K-State Today

May 17, 2013

I-Center scholars finish 2012-2013 grant projects

Submitted by Virginia Naibo

Nine math undergraduate students and four math graduate students were awarded Center for the Integration of Undergraduate, Graduate and Postdoctoral Research, or I-Center, research scholarships during the 2012-2013 academic year. They are finishing up their research projects.

The undergraduate scholars were John Abou-Rached, Dakota Bixler, Josh Ericson, Vance Gaffar, Max Goering, Joshua Klarmann, Fernando Roman, Ronald Seager and Ryan Sutton. The graduate scholars were Bryan Bischof, Eric Bunch, Jodi Herbert and Vincent Pigno.

John Abou-Rached is majoring in mathematics. The title of his project is "Fractal Dimensions of Self-affine Attractors" and his research mentor is Victor Turchin.

Dakota Bixler is majoring in electrical engineering and mathematics. The title of his project is "Sparse Spherical Harmonics Expansions" and his research mentor is Diego Maldonado.

Josh Ericson is majoring in mathematics. The title of his project is "Equivariant Quiver Hecke Algebras" and his research mentor is Zongzhu Lin.

Vance Gaffar is majoring in mathematics. The title of his project is "Little Shift Equivalence Conjecture/Williams conjecture" and his research mentor is Sarah Reznikoff.

Max Goering is majoring in mathematics. He has worked on a project titled "Modeling the Spread of Ideas Through Society" under the mentorship of Nathan Albin. He is now working on a project titled "Epidemic Simulation with the Epidemiological Quasi-metric," under the guidance of Nathan Albin and Pietro Poggi-Corradini.

Joshua Klarmann is majoring in mathematics and mathematics education. The title of his research project is "Integral Transforms with Exponential Kernels on Rings of Polynomials in a Single Variable" and his research mentor is Zongzhu Lin.

Fernando Roman is majoring in mathematics. The title of his project is "Digital Image Processing Techniques for Face Recognition" and his research mentor is Virginia Naibo.

Ronald Seager has a bachelor's in mathematics and is currently a mathematics graduate student. The title of his project is "Rational Discrete Analytic Functions" and his research mentor is Dan Volok.

Ryan Sutton is majoring in computer science and mathematics. The title of his research project is "Analysis of a Combinatorial Game" and his research mentor is David Auckly.

Bryan Bischof is a graduate student member of the research team with Josh Ericson and Zongzhu Lin.

Eric Bunch is a graduate student member of the research team with Joshua Klarmann and Zongzhu Lin.

Jodi Herbert is a technical assistant to the center's director and her duties include meeting with the undergraduate research scholars to teach them the basics of LaTex and guide them in the format of their research reports and presentations.

Vincent Pigno is a graduate student member of the research team with Fernando Roman and Virginia Naibo.

The center was established in the fall 2006 to promote and advance an integrated approach to undergraduate and graduate research in the mathematics department. With the support of the Brent P. Smith Memorial Endowment for Mathematics Enrichment, and the Evan Stewart, Endowment for the Enrichment of Mathematics, the center awards grants to undergraduate and graduate students to fund research projects under the supervision of faculty or postdoctoral fellows. These student grant recipients are designated as I-Center Undergraduate or Graduate Scholars.