By Andrew Molchany, JMU Office of Public Affairs

Students presented 32 posters and 28 discussions at this year's conference.

Students from as far away as the University of Southern California, the University of Utah, and the University of Nevada traveled to the third annual Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics (SUMS) Conference at JMU.

The students from the western schools, along with 86 JMU students, were among 250 presenters and attendees of this years conference, held Saturday, Oct.13 at the Health and Human Services building on JMU’s campus east of Interstate 81.

Laura Taalman, associate professor of mathematics and a co-organizer of SUMS, said the conference serves both JMU students and the larger mathematical community. "Within JMU, SUMS provides an incentive for students to prepare research papers and expository posters that extend their usual coursework, and a venue for both math and non-math majors to experience what mathematicians do," she said. "Presenting at SUMS has become a standard part of some of our math major courses, and attending SUMS is worth credit in courses throughout the department, including liberal arts and calculus courses."

Elizabeth Theta Brown, assistant professor of mathematics and also a co-organizer, added: "SUMS also reaches out to high school students and faculty, on the premise that just as undergraduates can learn a lot from attending a faculty mathematics conference, so can high school students learn a lot from attending an undergraduate conference."

In addition to student presentations, the conference featured keynote speakers Mike Krebs, a math professor from the California State University, Los Angeles and Ann Trenk, a math professor from Wellesley (Mass.) College. Krebs presented Beaucoup de Sudoku, an investigation into the mathematical techniques behind the popular brain game sudoku. Trenk presented Groovy Graphs: Coloring, Scheduling and Solving Mysteries, an exploration into the practical applications of graph theory.

Students presented 32 posters and 28 discussions; nine students participated in both the poster and oral presentations.

This year’s presenters were:

• Jorge Bruno, James Madison University
  Cardinal Invariants for ${\mathfrak C}[0,1]$
  (talk)
• Desmond Torkornoo, University of Richmond
  How far from being prime are you (additively speaking)?
  (talk and poster)
• Benjamin Leard, James Madison University
  Dynamics of a Ratio-Dependent Predator-Prey Model with Nonconstant Harvesting Policies
  (talk)

A student discusses her poster in the hallway of the Health and Human Services Building.

• Lauren Nicole Merrill. College of William and Mary
  A Linear Algebraic Interpretation of Majority Rule Outcomes
  (talk)
• Catherine Schwartz, James Madison University
  Barrel Vibrations Of Medium Caliber Rapid- Firing Guns
  (talk)
• Donovan Gromet, North Carolina State University}
  Weighting for Coverage Bias in Internet Surveys
  (talk and poster)
• Casey James Hufford, Morehead State University
  Book Embeddings of Chessboard Graphs
  (talk)
• Callie Johnson, James Madison University
  Modeling Atomic Force Microscope Deformation of Fibrin Fibers
  (talk and poster)
• Akrita Bhatnagar, George Mason University
  MCell And DReAMM Simulations Of Catecholamine Release Detection Using a Patch Clamp Technique
  (talk)
• Alli Crandell, Hollins University
  Teacher Adoption of an Interactive Math Curriculum
  (talk and poster)
• Julianne Coxe, James Madison University
  How many hours does it take to model the local atomic structure of a sample? Two... Four... Six... Six!
  (talk)
• B. Nicholas Wahle, Morehead State University
  The Equivalence Number and Transit Graphs for Chessboard Graphs
  (talk)
• Jeff Troy, Lynchburg College
  Collatz Tree: Inductive and Deductive approaches to the Collatz conjecture
  (talk)
• Dustin Hevener, James Madison University
  Bayesian Multiple Comparisons for Treatments with a Control
  (talk)
• Kumnit Nong, George Mason University
  Thin Film Evolution
  (talk and poster)
• Rusty A. Stough, Geneva College
  Protein Stability of a 21 Residue Alanine Based Peptide
  (talk)
• Sarah Vaden, Roanoke Valley Governor's School
  Development of a Graphical and Analytical Ternary Analysis for Mixed Hydrocarbon Flame Strength Studies
  (talk and poster)

This year's conference attracted 250 people, including presentes and other attendees.

• Isaac A. Kpodonou and Faraz A. Shaikh, University of the District of Columbia
  The Relationship between Drug Abuse and HIV/AIDS incidence among different ethnicities
  (talk)
• Omri Bar-Mashiah and Kyle Whittaker, George Washington University
  Tenability of Polya Urns and Applications
  (talk and poster)
• Lisa Gabor, George Washington University
  Evaluation of Computational Methods in the Prediction of Protein-Protein Interactions in Arabidopsis thaliana.
  (talk and poster)
• Stephanie Bush, College of William and Mary
  Deterministic Collections of Minors for Square-Matrices
  (talk)
• Ellen Webb, University of Nevada, Reno
  Scaling of nearest-neighbor trees for a Poisson point field in $\mathbb{R}^n$
  (talk)
• Charell Wingfield, James Madison University
  Cardinal Invariants Beyond the Continuum
  (talk)
• Allison Johnson, Benjamin Leard, and Megan Mifflin, James Madison University
  Power to the People; Solving the Problem of Gerrymandering
  (talk)
• Michael Frempong and Charell Wingfield, James Madison University
  HPV Vaccination Modeling
  (talk and poster)
• Lauren Blount, St. Mary's College of Maryland
  Equilateral Stick Knots
  (talk)
• Paul McMichael and Jonathan Nuckols, College of William and Mary
  Eigenvalue Multiplicity of Hermitian Matrices whose Graphs are Trees
  (talk)
• Chris LaVallee, University of Southern California
  Post Marketing Drug Surveillance
  (talk)
• Jorge Bruno and Charell Wingfield, James Madison University
  Cardinal Invariants Beyond the Continuum
  (poster)
• Catherine Schwartz and Steve Winward, James Madison University
  Investigation of Implicit Methods for Numerical Differentiation
  (poster)
• Philip Chodrow, Shenandoah Valley Governor's School
  A Generalization of the Faulhaber Formula Using Iterated Partial Sums
  (poster)
• Bo Qin, Albemarle High School
  Students' usage of computers
  (poster)
• Yasmeen Hussain, University of Utah
  Cell Cycle Modeling: An Exploration in Math Biology
  (poster)
• Matt Hammer, Roanoke Valley Governor's School
  Examining the Effect of the Harmonic Series on Equal Temperament
  (poster)
• Matthew Lowman, James Madison University
  The Intersection of Three Circles
  (poster)
• Hunter Caudill, Lisa Klassen, and Peter Zhang, James Madison University
  Random Variance of Stock Price Over Time
  (poster)
• Chloe Heatwole, James Madison University
  The Goldbach Conjecture
  (poster)
• Paul Dorn, James Madison University
  An Investigation on the Fourier Transform for the Application of Digital Audio Compression
  (poster)
• Jen Lam, Douglas Fordham, and Megghan Mitchell, James Madison University
  Prime Time With Goldbach
  (poster)
• Deena Hannoun, James Madison University
  Two-Dimensional Polygon Smoothing
  (poster)
• Nina Cross, Danny Kiely, and Abigayle Wood. James Madison University
  Pure Gold: Rollin' Deep with the Goldbach Conjecture
  (poster)
• Patrick Gabriel, Troy Herndon, and Cameron Kolleda, James Madison University
  Trans-Fourier-tion
  (poster)
• Suzanne Ellen Lynch and Mariko Weber, James Madison University
  Polygon Smoothing: The Mathematics Behind the Evolution of Virtual Reality
  (poster)
• Michael Beaumont, Mitchell Charchalis, and Alex Helberg, James Madison University
  Modeling Brownian Motion
  (poster)
• Jonathan Dixon and Heather Lineberry, Radford University}
  Reed-Solomon Codes
  (poster)
• Valentina Moshnikova. Albemarle High School
  Tennis Rivalry: Comparison of Performance by R. Federer and R. Nadal
  (poster)
• Laurence Lewis, James Madison University
  The Mathematics of Modeling Materials
  (poster)
• Steven Hu and Greyson Moore, James Madison University
  An Analysis of the Random Movement of Stock Prices over Time
  (poster)
• Maggie Guy and Callie Johnson, James Madison University
  Approximating Initial and Boundary Value Problems with Explicit Methods
  (poster)
• Matthew DiGiosaffatte, James Madison University
  Complex Tetration
  (poster)
• Michael Dankwa and Jan Herburt-Hewell, James Madison University
  Influence of male and female interaction on gender allocation of offspring
  (poster)

Published October 2007 by JMU Public Affairs