Overview:
The goal of Grad Stem For All is to empower and further
inspire all interested students from colleges and universities
in Western New York area to pursue advanced degrees in STEM
fields, particularly mathematics and statistics. We are
especially looking to involve groups that have traditionally
been underrepresented in STEM, including women and
underrepresented minorities. Our goal is to provide these
students with the information, skills and training needed to
succeed in graduate school, academic careers, and industry.
The three components of the program are coursework, research
and mentoring. During the summer, faculty from local
universities will be teaching a series of mini-courses that
will enhance the undergraduate education the students receive
at their liberal arts institution. These mini-courses are
meant to be a preview of graduate coursework and provide
students with a deeper background in mathematics and/or
statistics. Each student participant will also be paired with
an experienced faculty mentor from an area college or
university, who can provide support and guidance throughout
the student's college career and beyond. By having an
identified mentor, students will more readily be able to get
involved in research projects, learn about graduate schools,
get advice on the application process, and learn more about
life in academia in general. We intend for the mentor/student
relationship to be long lasting, inspiring students to pursue
advanced coursework and careers in STEM field. After the
mini-courses, the program is going to enter the research phase
where the students are going to be guided through a series of
accessible open problems.
Interested individuals are encouraged to contact us at
urstemforall2019@gmail.com
Please read the rest of the page and then....
Organizers: This program was launched
in 2018 by
Drs.
Joseph Ciminelli and Alex
Iosevich from the Department of Mathematics at the
University of Rochester and by
Dr.
Sally Thurston from the Department Biostatistics and
Computational Biology.
You can find
the description of last year's program by clicking on this
link. This year the program is organized by
Alex
Iosevich and
Vitaly
Lorman from the Department of Mathematics. Outreach for
the program is organized by Dr. Cheri Boyd from the Department
of Mathematics at Nazareth College. Critical to the success of
these efforts are the cooperation from faculty from the School
of Mathematics from Rochester Institute of Technology, and
other faculty and graduate students from these departments. We
hope to expand this list to cover every college and university
in the Rochester area that teaches mathematics and statistics
courses.
Mentoring: Every participant in our
program will be assigned to a mentor, who will assist them
with course selection, advise them on additional readings and
help them seek out graduate and professional opportunities.
The participant will be able to maintain phone and email
contact with the mentor, in addition to regular meetings.
Mini-courses: The first wave of
summer courses will be offered in July, 2019. Students will be
responsible for their housing and transportation to the
program. Each mini-course will run Monday through Friday for a
two-week period.
Each program will be followed by an informal two-week followup
where the interested students can explore the topics in more
depth with the instructor based on the background they have
gained during the initial phase of the program. Long term
research opportunity plans can be made for students who wish
to continue the process once the program ends.
A detailed description of the mini-courses follows
below.
Click here
for a detailed schedule.
Careers in STEM disciplines panel discussion, July 22,
2020: Panel discussion about potential careers in
the STEM disciplines. Panelists: Ayla Gafni (UR mathematics),
Alice Quillen (UR astronomy/physics), Steven Senger (MSU
mathematics), Vera Tilson (UR School of Business) and Emmett
Wyman (Northewestern math). Moderator: Alex Iosevich (UR
mathematics).
Description of the mini-courses:
Mini-course 1 July 15-19, 22-26, 2019 with the
research phase running the following two weeks.
Instructor: Ayla
Gafni
Graduate assistants: Fatma Cicek and Alex McDonald.
Time: 9:30-11:30 a.m.
and 12:30-1:45 p.m. (problem solving session MWF and
mentoring on TTh)
Location: Hylan 1101.
Title: Integer
partitions
Prerequisites: First year calculus.
Description: A partition of an integer n is a
multiset of positive integers whose sum is equal to
n. For example, there are five partitions of 4,
namely, 4, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, and 1+1+1+1. In this
course we will explore the various properties of integer
partitions. Topics include partition identities and
bijections, Ferrer's diagrams and Durfee squares,
partition generating functions, and partition congruences.
Mini-course 2 July 15-19, 22-26, 2019 with
the research phase running the following two weeks.
Instructor: Alex Iosevich and Yakun
Xi
Graduate assistants: Alex and Brian McDonald.
Time: 2:00-4:00 p.m. and 12:30-1:45
p.m. (problem solving session MWF and mentoring on
TTh)
Location: Hylan 1101.
Title: Sums, products and beyond
Prerequisites: High school geometry and first year
calculus.
Description: We are going to focus on the
sum-product phenomenon for subsets of the integers and
subsets of cyclic groups of prime order. The question is,
can the set of pairwise sums and the set of pairwise
products of a finite sum be simultaneously small. The idea
is that addition and multiplication are very different
operations, so it is difficult for a set to both resemble
an arithmetic progression and a geometric progression.
Remarkably, this problem can be studied from a geometric
point of view using rather elementary ideas that do not
require much background to absorb.
Mini-course 3 July 15-19, 22-26, 2019
with
the research phase running the following two weeks.
Instructor:
Steven
Kleene,
Emmett
Wyman and
Ian
Alevy
Graduate assistants: Nik Chatzikonstantinou
Time: 2:00-4:00 p.m. and 12:30-1:45
p.m. (problem solving session MWF and mentoring on
TTh)
Location: Hylan 1106B.
Title:
From elementary geometry to
cutting edge mathematics
Prerequisites: two semesters of first year calculus and high
school geometry
Description: Euclid's axiomatic treatment of geometry
in The Elements was, among other things, remarkable for its
amazing and unparalleled precision and rigour, neither
of which were surpassed until the founding of truly modern
mathematics in the 1800's. Nonetheless, the original work is
somewhat poorly understood by many for what it does and does
not do. In particular, for all the rigour with which it treats
its subject, a truly axiomatic treatment of geometry had to
wait until certain modern mathematical concepts, such as
continuity, could be completely formulated. In this two week
course, we will carefully examine the foundations of Euclidean
geometry from the point of view of Euclid's original axioms
from the Elements. We will discuss the limitations of these
axioms and the modern notions which quite literally filled
gaps in several important classical results. The second part
of the course, we will discuss how Euclid's formal treatment
of geometry, namely the Parallel Postulate, led to the
discovery of so called non-euclidean geometries and
ushered in a new era of modern mathematics and physics. We
will conclude the class with a discussion of some modern open
problems in geometry
Mini-course 4 July 15-19, 22-26, 2019
with
the research phase running the following two weeks.
Instructor:
Vitaly
Lorman
Graduate assistants: Semin Yoo
Time: 9:30-11:30 a.m. and 12:30-1:45
p.m. (problem solving session MWF and mentoring on
TTh)
Location: Hylan 1106B
Title:
Knots and polynomials
Prerequisites: Two semesters of calculus (required).
Description: Knot
theory is an accessible and exciting area of math with
connections to geometry, topology, physics, and abstract
algebra, among other fields. It has also seen great progress
in the last few decades with the invention of powerful new
ways to study knots, such as the Jones and HOMFLY polynomials.
We will start with a hands on introduction to knot theory and
work through lots of examples. We will then focus on
polynomial knot invariants and investigate exactly how much
these polynomials can tell us about knots.
Additional mini-courses may be added to the list in the coming
weeks.