2010 Scholarship and Awards Ceremony

Thursday, April 29, 2010, 4:10pm, Neill Hall Hacker Lounge

The department was pleased to honor its many outstanding students with scholarships and awards at the annual Scholarship and Awards Ceremony. A reception with refreshments followed. Scholarships and awards are made possible by the generosity of our donors, which is deeply appreciated. For a more complete description of each scholarship, please visit the department scholarship page.

Eric Larson received the William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment Fund Award.
Eric is from Spokane, Washington and will graduate from WSU in 2011. He completed two years of college at Eastern Washington University during high school through the Running Start Program. He has received the Jones, Delbert E. Marilyn M. Memorial Scholarship, an Academic Competitiveness Grant, a National S.M.A.R.T. Grant, a University Achievement Award, has been on the President's Honor Roll, and is a member of the honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. Eric has been a math tutor, as well as a physics tutor. This is his second year working as an undergraduate TA for the department. He was one of only two WSU students to compete in the national William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and scored within the top one-third of all participants. This summer he will be working as a research assistant on work involving image analysis. He plans to continue his education with graduate school and is contemplating a career in higher education, or working with a team of scientists in industry. Dr. Kevin Vixie presented the award.

Peter Klosterman received a Morris Knebelman Outstanding Senior Award.
Peter is a senior from Normandy Park, Washington with a 3.99 cumulative gpa. He is a WSU Distinguished Regents Scholar who received the 2007 Bell Freshman Mathematics Scholarship as well as the William and Mary Lynn Graber Scholarship in 2008, the Marianne Hawley Fessler Memorial Mathematics Scholarship in 2009, and has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester at WSU. In the summer of 2009 he participated in the Undergraduate Mathematical Biology (UBM) research program investigating the modeling of the immune system interaction with HIV using a system of differential equations. He has worked as an undergraduate TA for the the Math Department for the past two years. Next year, he will be enrolled in the Masters in Teaching program at WSU and upon completion would like to teach high school or community college math. He says, "I want to show people that they can succeed at math and even enjoy it. I believe that I can make math classes fun and interesting." Dr. Matt Hudelson presented the award.

Amelia Hancock received a Morris Knebelman Outstanding Senior Award.
Amelia is a Washington State Regents Distinguished Scholar (2007-2011), a Washington State Scholar (2007-2011), and a National Merit Scholar (2007-2009). In 2009 she received the College of Sciences Undergraduate Student Research Minigrant and the Graber Entrepreneurial Grant. Last summer she researched numerical solutions of the one-dimensional Richards Equation, an equation commonly used in hydrology to model water flow in porous media. She is active in her church, is Vice President of the WSU Math Club, occasionally plays violin with the WSU Mariachi group, and plays the piano in her spare time. After graduation she plans to complete a master's program in biostatistics and would like to work in the biostatistics field related to epidemiology and medical research. Amelia was not present for the award but Dr. Judi McDonald recognized her for her many accomplishments.

Samuel Shellabarger received the Bell Outstanding Freshman Award.
Samuel is from Cheney, Washington and holds a 4.00 gpa. He is a WSU Silver Regents Scholar, and a Spokane Scholar in Math. He received a UBM Math Biology Scholarship, a Henry Neusse Scholarship, and the Cheney Federal Credit Union Scholarship. In high school he was on the varsity basketball team, played football, ran track, was a member of the Cheney Youth Commission, the National Honor Society, and volunteered with Special Olympics. Since 2002, his summer job has been mowing lawns for individuals in his community and last summer he added car detailing to his summer workload. He takes care of a snow shoveling business during the winter. His career goal is to become an actuary working for a large company. Five years after graduation he is contemplating the possibility of creating his own independent actuarial firm.

Corby Harwood received the Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Research.
Corby has been a graduate teaching assistant in the department since 2006 while pursuing his Ph.D. in mathematics. He has maintained a high GPA while working under Dr. V. S. Manoranjan on research that has involved analyzing models and approximating solutions for chemical diffusion in a lead-acid battery and symbiotic growth in a spatially heterogeneous algae population, as well as developing an operator splitting technique for solving semi-linear partial differential equations. The Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Research Fellowship was also awarded to him in 2007, and in 2009 he received the Nancy J. Robertson Graduate Fellowship. His name has been on two research publications. From 2006 to 2008, he was the head tutor and assistant coordinator for math tutoring in Gannon Goldsworthy Hall. Corby has actively helped to recruit future students into the mathematics graduate program. In addition to his coursework and teaching assistantship, he is currently providing research support for the University of Idaho Microelectronics Research and Communications Institute as a model developer for lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries. Upon receiving his Ph.D. he plans to teach and continue research in higher education.

Bonni Kealy received the Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Teaching.
Bonni is from Spokane, Washington, and this will be the "third" year in a row that she has received this award. Bonnie is pursuing her love of teaching and mathematics by completing a PhD so that she can teach at the university level. She fell in love with calculus in high school and completed a bachelor and master's degree in mathematics at EWU. She has been a teaching assistant for the past two years and has taught Precalculus, Introductory Linear Algebra, and Calculus I. This year will be her seventh year of teaching university level mathematics, as she was previously a lecturer at Whitworth University and also a graduate instructor at Eastern Washington University before coming to WSU. She says, "As I progress toward a PhD in Mathematics, I have found that with an increasing knowledge of advanced mathematics has come an equally increasing desire to teach higher level mathematics courses. I find it highly rewarding to open up the broad world of mathematics and all of its different fields to young scientists. I look forward to teaching more and more advanced classes and one day take on graduate master's level advisees." Dr. David Wollkind, Bonni's advisor, presented the award.

Katrina Bech received the Vatnsdal Memorial Scholarship.
Katrina is from Spokane, Washington and graduated from Lewis and Clark High School. She has received the Oscar and Muriel Ferrians Scholarship from the Foreign Language Department (2009-2010), a University Achievement Award for 2007-2009, a Boeing Outstanding Student/Science Scholarship (2007-2009), and has been on the President's Honor Roll each semester from Fall 2007 to the present. She is active in the WSU Math Club, the Cougar Marching Band, the Cougar Pep Band, the WSU Women's Golf team, and Campus Crusade for Christ. She plans to attend graduate school after graduation and then plans to teach math. She says, "I love mathematics and I think that I always have. I feel that I have been destined to be a teacher my entire life and mathematics has been such fun (most of the time) to learn about that I can't see myself doing anything else but spending time teaching mathematics." Katrina was not present at the ceremony, but her advisor, Dr. Libby Knott, spoke of her accomplishments.

Nathan Hamlin received the Nancy J. Robertson Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Math. Nathan Hamlin is a research assistant for the department while he is completing his PhD in mathematics. He has been an NSF STEM Fellow from 2008 to 2010, and a NSF GK-12 Fellow from 2005 to 2006. Prior to that he was a University of California (USC) Renaissance Scholar, a Bodman Scholar of Science, and a USC Trustee Scholar with a full academic scholarship from 1999-2004. He is currently working on two publications with a professor from the WSU Teaching and Learning Department. His work with another professor in mathematics is almost ready for publication and will deal with the extension of Zeckendorf's Theorem to arbitrary recurrences with positive coefficients. He and his wife are the proud parents of a new baby daughter. After completing his PhD he plans to teach and continue his research in higher education. Dr. Bill Webb, his advisor, presented the award.

Justin Englund received the Julie Kerr Scholarship in Mathematics
Justin is a sophmore from Federal Way, Washington with a cumulative gpa of 3.99. He has received the University Achievement Award and the WSU Mortar Board Outstanding Freshman Scholar Award. He is a member of the Pac 20 All-Academic First Team in Cross-Country and has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester at WSU. For the past few summers he has been a volunteer track coach for the Federal Way Track Club. He has tutored friends and classmates in math when they have needed help. He is on the WSU Cross-Country and Track team at WSU. He is also a representative for the Cross-Country team on the WSU Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which leads student athletes in community service, such as fundraising for Haiti, setting up reading buddies at local elementary schools, as well as other activities. He plans on becoming an actuary upon graduation. Five years after graduation he says, "I hope that I will be getting close to completting all of the actuarial exams and will be well on my way to a good career." His advisor, Haijun Li, presented the award.

Click on an image below to view a larger size.

Mano Manoranjan welcomes individuals to the ceremony.	Nathan Hamlin, his baby daughter, and his wife.	Kay McAuley prepares to cut the cakes.
Kevin Vixie, Eric Larson, Peter Klosterman, Bonni Kealy, and David Wollkind.	Bob Mifflin, a student, Dong Mei Liu, Kris Boreen, Pam Guptill, and Matt Hudelson.	Bill Webb with Nathan Hamlin and his wife. Bonni Kealy and David Wollkind are to the left.
Eric Larson with his girlfriend.	Cake number one.	Cake number two.
Judi McDonald.	Libby Knott.	Matt Hudelson.