April 12th, 2013

Every year the Teaching and Learning Center honors up to five faculty for innovations in their teaching. This year’s winners span the sciences, the arts, literature and mathematics, but all share the dedication to teaching and the willingness to take risks that result in better student learning.

Find out more about the innovative work of Christa Colyer (chemistry), Cynthia Gendrich (theater), Grace Wetzel (English), Jack Dostal (physics), Stewart Carter (music) and Sarah Mason (mathematics).  Continue reading »

Bob Plemmons (’61), Z. Smith Reynolds professor of mathematics and computer science, has been selected as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

The fellowship honors SIAM members who have made outstanding contributions to the fields served by the organization.

“Being selected as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics means a lot to me in terms of accomplishments as I retire from teaching at Wake Forest, although my research activities will continue for a few more years,” Plemmons said. “This Society has been my home professional organization throughout my academic career, spanning forty-seven years and four universities, with the last twenty-three spent at my alma mater, Wake Forest.”

The focus for SIAM is applied, computational and industrial mathematics, and the society often promotes its acronym as “Science and Industry Advance with Mathematics.” It was founded in 1950 in Philadelphia and currently has more than 15,000 members worldwide.

“My research is centered around applied research directly addressed by SIAM,” Plemmons said, “and I’ve been a very active member over the years in terms of administration and conference organizing.”

Congratulations to Robert James Plemmons, Reynolds professor of math, whose proposal entitled “Comprehensive Space-Object Characterization using Spectrally Compressive Polarimetric Imaging” has been funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the University of New Mexico (WFU funding agency).

Congratulations to Ellen Kirkman, professor of mathematics, whose proposal entitled “Invariant Theory of Artin-Schelter Regular Algebras” has been funded by the Simons Foundation.

Congratulations to Sarah Raynor, associate professor of mathematics, whose proposal entitled “Asymptotic Behavior of Solutions to Nonlinear Dispersive Equations” has been funded by the Simons Foundation.

Professor of Mathematics Ellen Kirkman has been named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for 2013. This is the program’s first year, and the inaugural class of 1,119 represents more than 600 institutions.

“This is the first group of AMS fellows who have been elected,” Kirkman said.  “It is a distinguished group of mathematicians, and I am honored to be chosen. It’s nice to be recognized by one’s peers.”

The Fellows of the AMS designation recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. The goals of the program are to create an enlarged class of mathematicians recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the profession and to honor excellence.

The AMS is the world’s largest and most influential society dedicated to mathematical research, scholarship, and education.

The initial class of Fellows of the AMS in its entirety can be found here.

Kirkman joined the Wake Forest faculty in 1975.