SUnMaRC 2011

Southwest Undergraduate Mathematics Research Conference

The 8th Southwest Undergraduate Mathematics Research Conference, SUnMaRC 11, was held last weekend, March 4-6 2011, hosted by Northern Arizona University. This conference series provides students an opportunity to see what math research can be about, to meet other students throughout the southwest with similar interests, to explore possibilities for graduate studies, and, for those that have already been working on a research project, to present their work.

UNM Sunmarc 2011 Attendees

The UNM contingent (from right to left, front to back) Front right: Bhim Subedi, Manish Paudel, Kushal Karki. Middle Row: Stephen Pietromonaco, Andrew Herring, Andrew Baxter, Dusty Brooks, Maria Felicity Tate, Michayla Means, Lynda Vargas, Charlotte Jacinto, Nicole Telles. Back Row: Fred Kaul, Loren Telles, Christopher Baeza, Joseph Edwards, Harold Litiku, Jeffery Gordon, Monika Nitsche. Andrea Pickrell was also part of the gang.

UNM had a large contingent of undergraduate students attend. 19 of our students and 1 faculty member (see picture), packed in 3 vans, drove to Flagstaff to join 100+ students from Arizona (ASU, MCC, NAU, UA), New Mexico (NMSU, UNM), and Texas (UTEP).  We saw many great talks both by students and invited speakers, talked to a panel of graduate students about their experiences, met many new people, got to do math, played games and told math jokes, and overall, had a lot of fun!

Dusty Brooks from UNM, presenting her talk on "N-impact periods in rectangular billiards" Here are some of our students comments: "an incredibly amazing experience" "The conference has inspired me to start to study more and really succeed in math." "brilliant presentations and wonderful guest speakers" "it allowed us to see what goes into researching a topic and presenting your findings concisely." "I really enjoyed the presentation by fellow UNM student Dusty Brooks.   Not only was her presentation extremely interesting, but it was very encouraging to see the work that is achievable through a student in our department." "even more, it was just inspiring to see fellow undergrads speak as passionately about mathematics as I feel" "Spending a weekend with so many people interested in math re-motivated me and made me feel like part of a math community." "More than the presentations themselves, just the environment and the connections made with other math people really made it worth it" "Most of my close friends are scared of math, and this was a good way to bond with people from my own university, as well as other university that share the same enthusiasm about the subject" "It was really inspiring to me to become more involved in the math department at UNM." "I also really enjoyed talking with the graduate students and hearing what they had to say about graduate level math.. made it easier to picture myself as a graduate math student." "This conference changed my mind about career in mathematics" "I would really like to start doing some research." "The people I met were phenomenal, and I plan on keeping them around for quite a while.  They have all given me an entire new aspect of learning mathematics." "definitely like to attend another conference in the future!" "I highly recommend the SUnMaRC conference to anybody going in to any kind of Science or Engineering. " "It's been one of the best things I've done all year." The only suggestion for change: "more coffee!"

Fred Kaul from UNM, presenting his talk on "Deformations of Lie Algebras" Our students furthermore returned really motivated to re-start the math club "so we can all stay in contact and geek out about math together." Apparently a face-book mathclub is already in progress, an official UNM Club with activities and webpage is on the way, and an early meeting on PI Day is happening on monday. Keep an eye out for it! Many thanks to Jeff Rushall from NAU for organizing this wonderful event! We are also grateful to UNMs Vice President of Student Affairs Cheo Torres, to UNMs Dean of Arts and Sciences Brenda Claiborne, and to the National Science Foundation, for supporting our UNM students. The NSF has awarded the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at UNM a large grant for Mentoring Through Critical Transitions Points (MCTP), which was fundamental in making our participation at SUnMaFC '11 possible.