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Putnam exam progress

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is the preeminent mathematics competition for undergraduate students in the United States and Canada; it takes place in December each year.

The problems asked in the competition are fun, but a real challenge: solving just one of these problems takes serious work and insight.

This year, seven UH Mānoa managed to solve at least one problem, an excellent achievement that puts them in the top half of over 4000 participants in the US and Canada.

One student, Adam Inamasu, made the top 500 students nationwide: see page 16 of the full results.

Congratulations to all who took part!

Professor Pavel Guerzhoy runs a 1-credit ‘Putnam preparation’ course in the Fall semester for students who are interested in working on fun and challenging math problems. Please contact Professor Guerzhoy or a math advisor if you are interested in taking part.

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Stimulating STEM education on Maui

Giving back to Maui keiki was at the heart of an educational trip to the Valley Isle by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Mathematics faculty members and graduate students.

people standing and kneeling playing board games
Jack Johnson playing a game with a young participant.

Professor Monique Chyba, Associate Professor Yuriy Mileyko and Assistant Professor Chuang Xu, with graduate students Alan Tong and Sam Glickman, visited Nāpili Noho, a community based emergency distribution hub at Nāpili Park that is helping those affected by the devastating Lahaina wildfire. They conducted math activities during a Christmas carnival-style event held on December 16.

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Ninth and 10th graders learning about graph theory.

Prior to their visit to West Maui, the UH Mānoa team interacted with about 40 high school students (grades 9–11) at UH Maui College. The students are part of TRiO Upward Bound, an engaging educational program that prepares low-income, first-generation high school students for college. The Maui students learned about graph theory, which is the study of graphs, that has cutting-edge applications such as social and traffic networks, optimal routing for emergency response, and molecular epidemiology.

people sitting in a class
Assistant Professor Chuang Xu teaching Upward Bound students about the Fleury’s algorithm.

 

This effort is part of a RAPID grant from the National Science Foundation on trauma-informed STEM education. Chyba and Mileyko are co-principal investigators on the grant

More at UH News

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Erman’s invited address at Joint Meetings

Assistant Professor Daniel Erman will be giving a prestigious AMS Invited Address at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco in January 2024. There will also be an AMS Special Session on Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry (associated with Invited Address by Daniel Erman).

Thursday January 4, 2024, 2:15 p.m.-3:20 p.m.
AMS Invited Address
Organizers:
Michelle Ann Manes, American Institute of Mathematics
Introduction by:
David Eisenbud, MSRI
From Hilbert to Mirror Symmetry
Room 207, The Moscone Center
Daniel Erman*, University of Hawaii

Header image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAjBkB7u2s