The Hamilton Mathematics Department hosted the spring 2012 meeting of the Seaway Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) on April 13 and 14.
The conference featured presentations by 18 faculty speakers and 23 students on a wide variety of mathematical topics. Twelve Hamilton students presented their work at the conference: seniors Louis Boguchwal, Yinghan Ding, Zane Glauber, Spencer Gulbronson, Sara Harding, Mark Ibrahim, Amelia Mattern, Alex Snow, Kristin Stenerson and Zijun Zhang; junior Yating Guan; and first-year student Robert Huben.
On Friday evening, six teams of undergraduates from participating institutions competed in a match of “Math Jeopardy.” The home team – senior Alex Snow, junior Megan Schlosser, and sophomores Caitlin O’Connor, Douglas Santoro, Madeline Umscheid and Sam Zimmerman – rallied to a one-point victory as Hamilton edged past SUNY Fredonia in the final Jeopardy round.
The meeting was attended by 185 participants from 36 institutions. Keynote addresses were delivered by David Bressoud, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College and immediate past president of the Mathematical Association of America; Bill Dunham, Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College; Robin Lock (P’06), Burry Professor of Statistics at St. Lawrence University; and Col. Steve Horton, Professor of Operations Research at the United States Military Academy and Deputy Department Head for the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
As indicated on their website, the MAA is “the largest professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level.” Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists; statisticians; and many others in academia, government, business, and industry. The Association is divided into 29 geographical sections; Hamilton is a member of the Seaway Section, which includes most of central and upstate New York, and extends north of the St. Lawrence River into Canada.
