2008 Scholarship and Awards Ceremony
The department was pleased to honor its many outstanding students with scholarships and awards at the annual Scholarship and Awards Ceremony. Scholarships and awards are made possible by the generosity of our donors, which is deeply appreciated. A reception with refreshments Immediately followed the ceremony and all students and family members were welcome. For a more complete description of each scholarship, please visit the department scholarship page.
Julianne Stricherz received the Bell Outstanding Freshman Award.
Julianne is an outstanding student majoring in secondary mathematics education. She is on the WSU President's Honor Roll and has received several scholarships for academic achievement and leadership. She is the editor in technology for her sorority and assists with newsletter writing and fixing computers. Her church benefits from her active involvement and last semester she helped teach special needs adults to bowl. Upon graduation from WSU she will continue her education with a master's degree and once completed would like to teach high school math. She also plans to coach track and cross country while she teaches.
Kelly Stratton received a Knebelman Outstanding Senior Award.Kelly was valedictorian of her high school senior class and has been on the WSU President's Honor Roll since Fall of 2004. She received the Certificate of Excellence for Third Year Language Study, the Richland High School National Honor Society Scholarship, the Glenn Terrell Presidential Scholarship, the University Achievement Award, the Washington Promise Scholarship, the Frank and Irene Potter Memorial, the Deans Scholarship, the Kenneth Vandeford Scholarship and the Knebelman Sophomore Memorial Scholarship. She is treasurer of the Math Club. She plans to attend graduate school and then work at a research institution on projects relating to the medical field.
Emilee Hearrean received a Knebelman Outstanding Senior Award.Emilee has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester at WSU. She has received the Washington State Promise Scholarship, Bismarck Turner Scholarship, University Achievement Award, Math Endowment Scholarship, National S.m.a.r.t. Grant Scholarship and the America Scholarship. She is an undergraduate teaching assistant for the department and a yoga instructor for the UREC as well as for Pullman Parks and Recreation. Emilee is pursuing a bachelor's degree in math education to become a high school math teacher. She plans to complete a masters degree in education and also obtain a bachelor's degree in kinesiology.
William Landowski received the Knebelman Outstanding Sophomore Award.William is pursuing a double major in mathematics and electrical engineering and has received the Silver Regents Scholarship, George Comegys and Margaret A. Comegys Memorial Scholarship, Harold Frank Engineering Scholarship, Hemmendinger Honors College Scholarship, Charles W. Harrison Engineering Scholarship, Sigma Phi Epsilon Balanced Man Scholarship, AP Scholar with Honor, and the Eagle Scout Award. He plays trumpet in the Cougar Marching Band as well as the WSU volleyball and basketball pep band. He volunteers for his church and helping others gives him a "great sense of pleasure and joy." He is considering a career in actuarial sciences and is "intrigued by the problem-solving involved in analyzing risk and the challenges that come with it." He wants to use his mathematical abilities to help others.
Eric Allen received the J. Russell and Mildred H. Vatnsdal Memorial Scholarship.Eric has a cumulative grade point of 3.9 and has consistently been listed on the President's Honor Roll. This spring he has been an undergraduate teaching assistant for the department, and is currently a research analyst for Hebert Research, Inc. He played on the Men's Rugby team at Colorado State University and has been active in the WSU Kappa Delta Pi Honor Society. Upon graduation he plans, "on using my math degree in one of two ways. One would be to supplement my marketing degree from CSU and gain employment in a mathematics related field, and the other would be to teach high school math in King County." He expects to complete a masters degree in mathematics five years from now at which time he will re-evaluate his short-term career goals.
Talitha Anderson received a William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment Fund Award.Talitha is in her senior year pursuing a degree in mathematics with the Teacher Preparation option. She is a member of the Math Club and has served as secretary of the club. She has been an active member of her hall government in the last two years serving as secretary, treasurer, and president. During the summer of 2006 she worked on a research project through the Undergraduates in Math and Biology Program and competed in the COMAP Mathematical Modeling competition last year. She plans to attend graduate school and says that, "Five years after graduation I would like to be teaching in a high school classroom with the hope of inspiring young minds to become interested in mathematics and perhaps pursue it as a career."
Peter Klosterman received a William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment Fund Award.Peter has a 4.0 grade average and is a WSU Distinguished Regents Scholar. He was valedictorian of his high school class and is a National Merit Commended Scholar. He has been on the President's Honor Roll and was a Washington State University Mortar Board Outstanding Freshman Scholar. This summer he will be working on a research project through the Undergraduate Mathematical Biology research program to mathematically model HIV-immune system interaction, with Dr. Elissa Schwartz as his mentor. He is involved in his church youth group, participated in the WSU Marching Band last fall, played in the symphonic band prior to that, and has participated in weekly swing dance nights through the Swing Devils dance club in Moscow, Idaho. He plans to obtain a Ph.D in mathematics.
Thomas Zeman received a William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment Fund Award.
Thomas is currently studying mathematics in Bonn, Germany. He has an accumulated grade point of 3.9 and has been on the President's Honor Roll every semester since attending WSU. He has received the "Certificate of Excellence in the Second-Year Study of German," and was awarded the WSU Mortar Board Outstanding Freshman Scholar. While in high school he wrote for the student newspaper, participated in debate for three years, and volunteered at the Foley Library in Spokane. He rowed during his freshman year at WSU and has been a tutor in the math department for the past two semesters. Last fall he tutored in the German department. He is considering attending Boston University for a graduate degree in their mathematical finance program. Five years from now he would like to be working as a quantitative analyst either on Wall Street or in another financial center. Eventually he would like to start his own consulting firm.
Elizabeth Bodine received a Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Research.Elizabeth has been a teaching assistant in the math department since 2006. She has successfully taught Math 107 three times, Math 110 two times, Math 202 and Math 210. In spring 2006 she assisted with Math 201. In the spring of 2006 she received the Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Scholarship for Graduate Students. Last year she represented the department as a senator in the Graduate and Professional Student Association. She completed her master's degree in mathematics with an emphasis in linear algebra in August of 2007. Since the fall of 2007, she has been doing research on "Spectrally Arbitary Zero-Nonzero Patterns of Matrices over Finite Fields," with professor Judi McDonald. Using ideas from linear algebra, combinatorics, and number theory, she has made significant progress. Her work shows creativity and an ability to use a variety of techniques to approach the same problem. She will submit her first paper on this topic shortly. She is completing her Ph.D in mathematics and will teach at the university level.
Andrei Kouznetsov received a Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Research.Andrei is completing his Ph.D and has maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA in his studies at WSU. He received his master's degree in computational mathematics from Novosibirsk State University in Russia. He is a dedicated student who loves mathematics. Presently, he is working with Dr. Alexander Panchenko from WSU and Dr. Andrej Cherkaev from the University of Utah on a discrete model of solid-solid phase transitions. Andrei provided some very crucial ideas for the proofs of the main results of an important research paper. The work on this paper is nearly done and will be submitted to the SIAM Journal on Multiscale Modeling and Simulation. The title of the paper is, "A lattice model of solid-solid phase transitions."
Bonni Kealy received a Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Teaching.Bonni is a teaching assistant and pursuing her Ph.D in the Department of Mathematics. She has a 4.0 cumulative GPA. She was a graduate instructor for two years at EWU while completing her master's degree. She then taught at EWU as an adjunct instructor, and was a Lecturer of Mathematics at Whitworth for one year. She says, "I have discovered that I enjoy teaching and working with students immensely. Teaching mathematics, in particular, is something I find challenging and rewarding. At the lower level, mathematics does not have to be scary! I believe that at the level of college algebra courses, it is important that teachers are prepared and willing to teach in such a manner that students learn to not only survive their required classes, but also maybe even learn to like math and come away with useful mathematical knowledge."
Elisabeth Ellison received a Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Fellowship for Graduate Teaching.Lisa is graduating with a master's degree in math in May 2008. During her time at WSU she has been a teaching assistant for the department and has taught pre-calculus courses and labs, while maintaining a high GPA. For her master's project she performed original research work that may some day be the seed for a doctorate degree. She has accepted a position teaching high school mathematics at Camas High School near her hometown of Battle Ground, Washington.
Neha Waikar received the Paul and Marjorie Clement Memorial Mathematic Scholarship.Last spring Neha received the President's Merit Award and the Harriet Rigas Scholarship for International Freshman and International Merit. Since 2007, she has worked as a tutor in the math department. In the summer of her freshman year she worked for WSU professor David Rector performing data analysis. She says, "Mathematics has always been my most favorite subject. I am naturally inclined towards logical thought processes and adore solving comlex programs through sorting its elements to improve clarity. I am particularly inclined toward the applied mathematics and am fascinated by techniques that employ differential equations, approximation theory and applied probability in solving day to day problems." She would eventually like to attend graduate school and work in mathematical research involving the theory of recursive or computable functions.
Marci Tonnemacher received the Julie Kerr Scholarship in Mathematics.Marci is an actuarial sciences major with a cumulative GPA of 3.9. She is currently an undergraduate teaching assistant for the department and has also worked as a grader and taught supplemental math courses to precalculus and business calculus for two years. She does math tutoring on the side. Her keen sense of humor and easy-going personality belie her mathematical abilities, and it is for this reason students are comfortable and enjoy coming to her for help. Upon graduation she would like to work as an actuary making a difference in the lives of people and the company for which she works. Marci is from Sandpoint, Idaho.
Corby Harwood received the Nancy J. Robertson Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Math.Corby has been a research assistant since 2006 while pursuing his Ph.D in mathematics. He has maintained a high GPA while working under Dr. V.S. Manorjan on research that has involved analyzing models and approximating solutions for chemical diffusion in a lead-acid battery, interactive algae growth, and medical dosages for erratic red blood cell counts. Last year he received the Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Research Fellowship. His name has been on two research publications. Since 2006 he has been the head tutor and assistant coordinator for math tutoring in Ganon Goldsworthy Hall. Corby has been active in helping to recruit future students into the mathematics graduate program. Upon receiving his Ph.D he plans to teach and continue research at a university.
Amy Yielding was recognized for receiving the Golding Graduate Fellowship for Women given by the College of Sciences.Amy is completing her Ph.D in mathematics and is a teaching assistant in the department. She received the 2006 and 2007 Sidney G. and Evelyn Hacker Graduate Teaching Award. In 2007, she received a "Faculty Excellence Award" from the students of the Naval ROTC Battalion at Washington State University and the University of Idaho. Amy is currently doing research with Dr. Judi McDonald who says, "Amy has tackled the very difficult problem of determining the maximum number of nonzeros that a zero-nonzero pattern over the real number system can have, and still fail to be spectrally arbitrary. She has made significan progress in this area and we are working on a paper for submission. Solving this problem has required both tenacity and clerverness, of which Ms. Yielding has both."
Bob Dillon received an Outstanding Research Award for Faculty.Dr. Dillon's research focuses on mathematical biology. His research interests include the study of eucaryotic and bacterial flagellar movement and ciliary motility in viscous fluids, mathematical modeling of tumor growth, vertebrate limb development and scientific computing. During the past two years alone, in collaboration with colleagues, he has had seven research articles published or currently in press. He has an NSF research grant on the dynamics of elastic biostructures in complex fluids which runs until the summer of 2010. In addition, he is a co-PI on the NSF Undergraduate Biology in Math (UBM) grant that provides over $900,000 funding for five years for developing undergraduate research programs in biomathematics at WSU. With his outstanding reputation, he has been an invited speaker at seven conferences or workshops in the past two years. In his private life, Bob is an accomplished musician and an active member of several local jazz groups. He can often be heard playing jazz guitar at local coffeeshops in Pullman and Moscow with groups such as Orjazzmic and the Vishnu Trio.
David Watkins received an Outstanding Research Award for Faculty.David has been on sabbatical this year in Berlin and Zurich, working on high performance algorithms for structured eigenvalue problems. He has also collaborated with Professor Mark Kuzyk of the WSU physics department for the past three years, combining his numerical expertise with Kuzyk's optics expertise to learn more about nonlinear optical properties of matter. Based on David's computations they wrote a paper that studies the effects of geometry on the hyperpolarizability of molecules to determine what sorts of molecules contribute to materials with superior nonlinear optical properties. Such materials could potentially find their way into lasers, optical fibers, or optical computing devices. Their study guided the synthesis of a molecule, by a lab in Belgium, with a higher measured intrinsic hyperpolarizability than any previously measured. Last year he was an invited guest speaker at a workshop in Poland, and France. This summer he will lecture at two graduate summer schools in linear algebra; one at Iowa State University and the other in Spain. In the fall he has been invited to speak at a workshop on structured linear algebra problems in Italy. David likes to bike in his spare time and is an avid ice skater.