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Students recognized with scholarships, awards

04-28-2016

The Department of Mathematics hosted a reception to honor the achievements of our students in mathematics on April 28.  The Gerald R. MacLane Award winner, 2015-2016 Outstanding Teaching Assistants and Purdue Teaching Academy Graduate Teaching Award and Dana Smith the Flora Roberts Award recipient were recognized along with the following undergraduate students who won awards and scholarships in recognition of their work.

Math Scholarship and award winners recognized.
Scholarship and Award winners recognized.

Michael Golomb Math Award

Michael Golomb received his PhD from the University of Berlin in 1933.  He came to Purdue University in 1942 and was active with his research in approximation theory and differential equations and in the Department well after his retirement in 1975, including organizing Problem of the Week.  He passed away in 2008.  Each year, the Golomb award goes to outstanding senior(s) in the Department of Mathematics.

  • Edwin Baeza
  • Di Chen

Eugene V. Schenkman Memorial Award          

Eugene Schenkman was a Professor of Mathematics at Purdue from 1961 until his death at age 55 in 1977.  His research was in the areas of Lie algebras, division algebras, analysis and group theory.  This award goes to the best algebra student of the year.                      

  • Yang Mo

Jerison Memorial Award in Analysis

Meyer Jerison served on the Mathematics faculty from 1951 until his retirement in 1991 and was Head of the department from 1969 to 1975.  His principal research interest was functional analysis with emphasis on function algebras and co-authored one of the classics in the field, Rings of Continuous Functions.  Undergraduate education was a serious concern for him.  A fund established in his memory is used in various ways to encourage students in mathematics.  The annual Jerison award goes to the best undergraduate analysis student.                           

  • Carter Chain

Glen E. Baxter Memorial Award       

The Baxter award was established in 1983 by family and friends of Professor Baxter shortly after his premature death.  His research areas included the theory of probability, combinatorial analysis, statistical mechanics, and functional analysis.  This award is directed toward outstanding seniors with interests in probability and statistics.

  • Carter Chain
  • Noah Rouleau

Merrill E. Shanks Memorial Award

Merrill Shanks served on the Mathematics faculty from 1946 until his retirement in 1978.  With Professor Golomb, he published the book Elements of Ordinary Equations.  His research interest was in the area of classical real analysis.  He was also very concerned about the education of mathematicians.  This annual award goes to the best student in mathematics education.          

  • Jenna Beckley
  • Jennifer Losby
  • Nicholas Montan

Senior Achievement Award

  • Mayfawny Bergmann
  • Cole Manschot
  • Joseph Ruan
  • Hon Kwan Wu
  • Zexuan Zhou

Putnam Exam  

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to the Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regardless of the students' nationalities). It is widely considered to be the most prestigious university-level mathematics examination in the world, and its difficulty is such that the median score is often zero or one (out of 120) despite being attempted by students specializing in mathematics.  The exam has been offered annually since 1938 and is administered by the Mathematical Association of America.

  • Thomas Clayton (10 pts.)
  • Manik Singhal (10 pts.)
  • Prashast Vaidya (11 pts.)
  • Yi Zheng (10 pts.)

Mathematics Scholarships

Thomas Arai Scholarship

This endowment was established September 2000 with a gift from Richard L. and Melinda J. Diesslin.  This scholarship is awarded to a student who is on track to receive a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 8 semesters with a 3.2 cummulative GPA and 3.5 GPA in mathematics after two semesters.

  • Mackenzie Druecke

Leonard D. & Anna W. Berkovitz Scholarship                 

The donor, William Browning (B.S. 1968, M.S. 1969, Ph.D. 1974 (Berkovitz)), founder and President of Applied Mathematics, Inc., Gales Ferry, CT, established this scholarship for mathematics undergraduates in 2003 to honor his Ph.D. advisor Leonard Berkovitz and his wife, Anna.

  • Carter Chain

Mark Hoppy Memorial Scholar   

Mark Hoppy was a Purdue student at the time of his death in 1997.  Mark was an honors math major, and he was a lab instructor for MA 366.  He had a deep love of mathematics.  His family established this scholarship in his memory to be awarded to a student majoring in mathematics maintaining a 3.0 GPA.

  • Benjamin Barr

Virginia Mashin Scholars

Income from an endowment established in 1982 by Jack Mashin and Virginia Mashin supports scholarships in the Department of Mathematics.  Recipients are required to have high academic achievement in all areas with a significant background in mathematics, and demonstrate good citizenship, love of our country and devotion to our form of government, and participation in both school and community activities.  Recipients are selected by the Division of Financial Aid with input from the Department of Mathematics.

  • James Marshall Reber
  • Alan Min
  • Chandler Nielsen

Arthur Rosenthal Scholars

Emeritus Professor Arthur Rosenthal was a professor of mathematics at Purdue University from 1947 to 1957, and he passed away in 1959.  His broad knowledge of mathematics and his interest in and understanding of his students helped to make him an outstanding teacher.  An endowment provides scholarships for undergraduate mathematics majors.  Recipients and award amounts are determined by a departmental committee and approved by the Head. 

  • Chris Barbour
  • Luis Baeza
  • Samuel Eschker
  • Ashley Gootee
  • Andrew Krenz
  • Jack VanSchaik
  • Sthitapragyan Parida                                                                       

Jean Rubin Scholars

The late Jean E. Rubin was a distinguished logician and professor of mathematics who died prematurely in 2003. She served for many years as Scholarship Chairperson for the Department of Mathematics.  The Jean E. Rubin Scholarship was created shortly after her death to continue her work of attracting talented students to study mathematics.  It is awarded solely on the basis of merit.

  • Yuting Chen
  • Rachel Jumper
  • Conner Lawrence
  • Mikaela Meyer
  • Kristen Mori

Gordon L. Walker Scholarship in Mathematics 

This scholarship is for students enrolled in the Mathematics department at Purdue who have demonstrated academic merit, as determined by the department of Mathematics.  Preference will be given to students who are sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

  • Davis Marasligiller

Helen Clark Wight Scholars         

These scholarships, established in a trust fund by Arthur E. Wight in 1991, are awarded to one or more undergraduate students per year in the College of Science.  Preference is given to students studying in the Department of Mathematics and pursuing the appropriate curriculum to qualify for certification to teach mathematics at the elementary or secondary education level.

  • Jennifer Dean
  • Baylee Hibshman
  • Kristin Hitch
  • Morgan Taylor

Andris A. Zoltners Scholar

This endowment was established in December 1996 by an alumnus of the Mathematics Department, Andris Zoltners, President of ZS Associates in support of undergraduate scholarships for juniors or seniors in mathematics. Reciepient selection is based on academic merit and is made by the Department of Mathematics with approval from the College of Science Dean

  • Peter Lamm

College of Science Awards

The following students were nominated by their major department as the outstanding students in their class for this award.  The Collge of Science Awards ceremony was April 17.

College of Science Outstanding Seniors:

  • Mayfawny Bergmann, Actuarial Science and Mathematics Honors
    • As an undergraduate, Mayfawny completed a research project at the boundary of computational mathematics, discrete applied probability and graph theory. She worked under the generous guidance of Dr. Mark Daniel Ward, and her work led to a publication in the Rose Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal. She also enjoyed two actuarial summer internships at Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne, IN. While earning majors in Actuarial Science and core Mathematics, she loved serving as a teaching assistant for actuarial courses, tutoring math students, mentoring through the Women in Science program, and leading student choirs at St. Thomas Aquinas church. Mayfawny was honored to receive the Baxter Award in Mathematics, the David Moore Scholarship in Statistics and the Charles C. Chappelle Fellowship for graduate work. Next year, Mayfawny will pursue a Fifth Year Masters in Applied Statistics at Purdue with the goal of becoming an actuary with an excellent statistical background.
  • Di Chen, Mathematics Honors
    • Since his junior year, Di has been taking several graduate level courses each semester. He participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates program under the guidance of Professor
      Laszlo Lempert, and he received the 2015 Eugene Schenkman Memorial Award, which goes to the best algebra student at Purdue. Di plans on furthering his mathematics education at grad school this fall.
  • Samuel Higginbotham, Physics Honors and Mathematics
    • For seven semesters Sam has worked in High Energy Physics, with professors Daniela Bortoletto and Matthew Jones, working on construction of the Phase 1 Compact Muon Solenoid detector system for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Over the past three years he has made innovative contributions to the manufacturing process of the Forward Pixel Sensors of CMS and has recently delved into Top Quark analysis with professor Andreas Jung. He plans to present a poster at the summer International Conference on High Energy Physics about supersymmetric searches using spin correlation measurements of the Top Quark.
  • Cole Manschot, Statistics Honors, Mathematics Honors, Mathematical Statistics, and Math/Operations Research, with minors in Spanish and Economics
    • While balancing Statistics and Mathematics majors, Cole Manschot studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, served as an Ambassador in the University Honors College, been a Math Tutor, worked as a Boiler Gold Rush Team Supervisor, and still made time to participate in multiple research experiences. Cole has been an intern in supply chain analysis at PepsiCo, and will return to work at PepsiCo again this summer.

Congratulations to all of our outstanding seniors and good luck in your future endeavors. 

College of Science Outstanding Juniors:

  • Carter Chain, Mathematics
  • Jackson Hunt, Actuarial Science

College of Science Outstanding Sophomores:

  • Madison Denning, Actuarial Science
  • Alan Min, Mathematics

College of Science Outstanding Freshmen:

  • James Marshall Reber, Mathematics
  • Sanchita Sanganeria, Actuarial Science

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