mathematics

A new tool using math has been designed to help sports franchises keep the fan experience at stadiums and arenas the safest it can be in this era of COVID-19. The formula was developed in part by John E. McCarthy, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Mathematics in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Brett Wick, professor of mathematics, and three other mathematicians from the U.S., France and Australia, received a Discovery Project award for their collaborative international project “Harmonic analysis: function spaces and partial differential equations.”

John E. McCarthy, chair and professor of mathematics and statistics at Washington University, was elected as a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. The society recognized McCarthy for his contributions to operator theory and functions of several complex variables.

On Nov. 4-6, Washington University hosted Field of Dreams, the annual conference of the Math Alliance, an organization dedicated to increasing the number of traditionally underrepresented groups in doctoral programs in the mathematical sciences.

Each academic year, students from Washington University distinguish themselves at two annual mathematics competitions: The North American Putnam Competition, in which this year the team finished eighth; and the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition, in which the team tied for first with a perfect score.

Two mathematics researchers, Irina Holmes and James Pascoe, will spend time at Washington University in St. Louis as recipients of the National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Mathematical Sciences, a highly competitive award.

Washington University in St. Louis mathematician Blake Thornton, PhD, came in first in the paddleboard division of the MR340, an endurance race on the Missouri River. Before signing up for next year’s race, you might want to read this article as well as watch the video.

There are five regular polytopes (Platonic solids) in three-dimensional space and six in four-dimensional space. Only their projections can be built in our dimension-deficient world and that requires an act of imagination. Ivan Horozov, PhD, the Chauvenet Lecturer in Mathematics, is building the two most complex figures in this office in his spare time.

Math circles, which bring together professional mathematicians and young students, have been a part of mathematical culture in Russia since the 1930s and in Bulgaria for nearly a century. Washington University’s math circle, founded in 2002, gives kids a chance to meet a mathematician and to absorb his or her adventuresome and imaginative approach to solving problems.

Gregory Knese, PhD, assistant professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences, has been awarded a $138,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project “Harmonic Analysis and Spaces of Analytic Functions in Several Variables.”