2011 Scholarship and Awards Ceremony

Thursday, April 28, 2011, 3:30pm, 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.

Nathaniel Blair received the Bell Outstanding Freshman Award

Nathaniel Blair is from Olympia, Washington where he attended Olympia high school and graduated with a 3.8 gpa. In high school he earned second in state for the Accounting 2 in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competition. The LE Bottling Company awarded him a scholarship at the end of high school because of his high gpa and leadership skills. He is on the President's Honor Roll and is a member of the WSU Honors Program. He plans to attend graduate school to complete a masters degree in education. His dream job is to teach high school mathematics in a Washington high school.

Sara Hogan received the Paul and Marjorie Clement Memorial Mathematical Scholarship

Sarah is from Kent, Washington and will graduate in 2013. In high school she maintained a gpa of 3.99. During her senior year in high school she received the Student of the Year Award from her high school mathematics department. She also received an Advanced Placement Scholar with Distinction Award for earning a perfect score of five across a total of seven advanced placement classes. WSU offered her an academic scholarship and she has been on the President's Honor Roll for her 3.93 gpa. At WSU she is involved in the Up All Night Committee of the Student Entertainment Board, and is a hall ambassador and a floor senator of her residence hall in addition to being a member of her hall's Community Assistant Program. She is leaving her future open and hopes it will involve mathematics.

Angela Gallip received the Marianne Hawley Fessler Memorial Scholarship

Angela is a senior at WSU from Silverdale, Washington. She is a double major in mathematics and music. Angela began her studies at WSU with a Crimson Regents Scholarship and a music department scholarship. At the end of her freshman year she received an award for being one of the most outstanding students in her General Education 111 class. She is a recipient of a Boeing Scholars Award which includes a junior and senior year scholarship and the opportunity to participate in a senior project with the Boeing company. She is currently a violist in the Washington-Idaho Symphony and has been an undergraduate teaching assistant in the Math Department since last summer. Upon graduation she hopes to work with Boeing or an engineering company that will utilize her mathematical skills.

Vance Creekpaum received the William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment Fund Award.

Vance is from Shelton, Washington and is a senior at WSU. His cumulative WSU gpa is 3.94 and he is a double major in mathematics and economics. In 2010 he received the University Achievement Award Scholarship, the Everette J. and Helen G. Kreizinger Scholarship, and a scholarship from the WSU Economics Department. He has participated in the Imagine You Program at WSU, and has completed a research paper on the problem of economic factors for community development for counties in Western Washington. He plans on pursuing a graduate degree in mathematics.

Andrew Nishi received the Vatnsdal Memorial Scholarship

Andrew Nishi is a senior in mathematics with a cumulative gpa of 3.87. He is from Honolulu, Hawaii and his advisor is Bala Krishnamoorthy. He has been on the President's Honor Roll for five semesters and has been a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars since 2009. He has tutored WSU math students in pre-calculus, trigonometry, calculus I and II, business calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations. He has recently researched Fibonacci Heap implementations of Dijkstas Algorithm to determine the shortest (cost) paths in networks. After graduation he would like to pursue an advanced degree in higher education which will allow him to do further university research or be hired in an analytical position in government or a mathematical biological program.

Nicholas Crabb received the Julie Kerr Scholarship in Mathematics

Nicholas Crabb is a mathematics major with a cumulative gpa of 3.97. He received a National SMART Grant for the 2010-2011 academic year and has been on the President's Honor Roll each semester since coming to WSU. In 2010 he participated in the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) mathematical contest. Over a 96-hour period, his team modeled various snowboard half-pipe designs to maximize the vertical jump height achieved by a rider. He plans to participate in the 2012 contest. Linear algebra is his favorite math topic and he is currently studying some open problems in that area. He plans to pursue an advanced degree upon graduation. His dream job is to be an astronaut but he will settle on working for NASA, Boeing or the National Science Foundation.

Justin Englund received the Richard and Bonnie Winkwenwerder Scholarship in Mathematics

Justin is a junior from Federal Way, Washington with a cumulative gpa of 3.84. He has received the Bell Outstanding Freshman Scholarship, the Julie Kerr Undergraduate Scholarship in Mathematics, a 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. He received the PAC-10 All-Academic First Team in Cross-Country Award in 2009 and 2010, the PAC-10 All-Academic First Team in Track and Field in 2010, and the MPSF All-Academic First Team in Indoor Track and Field in 2010. He has has been a teaching assistant for Math 202 and is also a representative for the Cross-Country team on the WSU Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which leads student athletes in community service. He plans on becoming an actuary upon graduation.

Nicole Fukuhara received the Robert and Nancy Strong Scholarship in Mathematics

Nicole is a junior from Silverdale, Washington. Her cumulative gpa is 3.91. Nicole has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester at WSU. She is a recipient of a University Achievement Award, received the Mortar Board Outstanding Freshman Scholar Award in 2010, and a Gannon Goldsworthy Hall Scholarship in the fall of 2010. She has been a math tutor since August 2010. During the summer of 2009 she was a summer school teacher's aide. She is active in a campus student ministry and when she graduates she would like to tutor at a learning center or work in a school classroom as an aide or paraeducator.

Baha M. Alzalg received the Hacker Memorial Mathematics Scholarship Award for Graduate Research

Baha is a graduate student from Amman, Jordan who is working on his PhD in mathematics. He is also a graduate research assistant in the Department of Mathematics. He has published three papers in refereed journals, and has four papers submitted that are awaiting publication. His research involves developing a duality theory for (deterministic) multi-order cone programs and investigating some applications leading to (deterministic, stochastic and mixed integer) multi-order cone programs, as well as developing algorithms for them. He was a conference presenter in four conferences (England, Oman, Canada, and Chile) in 2010 to 2011. He is currently organizing a session for the Stochastic Programming area of the Optimization Society at the 2011 INFORMS annual meeting in November 2011, located in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Thomas Haydock received the Hacker Memorial Mathematics Scholarship Award for Graduate Teaching

Thomas is from Anchorage, Alaska and for the past four semesters has been a teaching assistant in the Department of Mathematics. He has been a TA for Math 171, 172, 273, and 106. He has consistently received superior evaluations from his students and the grades of the students' he teaches are above the average set by other instructors. He say's, "I want to be able to provide lectures that students won't want to miss, not just because the material is important, but because I am able to transmit my passion for math and provide vivid descriptions that make every concept clearer." One student wrote on an evalution, "Mr. Haydock is the best teacher I've ever had at WSU. He wanted the students to actually succeed and did everything in his power to help accomplish this." Another student wrote, "So far, he has been one of my best teachers here at WSU."

Cara Davis received the Morris Knebelman Outstanding Sophmore Scholarship Award

Cara is from Sammamish, Washington and is a sophomore at WSU with a cumulative gpa of 3.83. She is working two jobs while attending college, is secretary of the Math Club, and participates in the Philosophy Club. She has received the University Achievement Award. Upon graduation she plans on teaching high school mathematics. Five years after that she may consider a graduate degree in mathematics.

Ting Pan received the Morris Knebelman Outstanding Graduating Senior Scholarship Award

Ting is a senior at WSU with a cumulative gpa of 3.98 majoring in mathematics. She has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester since the fall of 2009. She has been receiving International Transfer Awards every semester from the fall of 2009 to the spring of 2011. She plans on attending graduate school after she graduates to complete a PhD in mathematics and then plans on working in a financial institution as an actuarial.

Waiting for the ceremony to begin.	Waiting for the ceremony to begin.	Matt Labrum eats cake.
Mano Manoranjan	Kay McAuley and student.	Corby Harwood and Bob Mifflin.
Bob Mifflin eats his cake.	Bill Webb, Corby Harwood, Kay McAuley and Connie Barner.