News from the Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics (2007-2008)

Congratulations to UNC undergraduate students who competed in the 2008 Mathematical Contest in Modeling: Ken Beasley, Xiaoxiao Guo, Emily Nix, Josh Schwartz, and Mandi Traud. The students formed two teams and each developed a model to analyze the potential effects of sea levels that rise due to global warming. Over 1,100 teams from around the world entered the contest this year, and both of our UNC teams were rewarded with the rank of Honorable Mention! More information is available at www.comap.com.

Congratulations to Wanda Strychalski, graduate student in applied math, recipient of a 2008-2009 Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School. The fellowship includes tuition, student fees, health insurance, and a 9-month stipend without teaching duties. More information about the fellowship is available from the Graduate School.

Support your local musical math professor and check out The Pneurotics CD Release "Forty": Saturday May 17, Local 506, Chapel Hill (Lineup: The Proclivities, Hammer No More the Finger, The Pneurotics, and Red Collar).

Congratulations to Liz Bouzarth, for her new position as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Duke, starting Fall 2008.

Congratulations to Lingxing Yao, recent Ph.D. graduate (adviser: Greg Forest) and current postdoctoral fellow in applied mathematics, for his new postdoctoral position in the Mathematical Biology group at University of Utah, starting Fall 2008.

Congratulations to Sorin Mitran for his recently-announced promotion to Associate Professor!

Wind tunnel added to Fluids Lab: Nekton Reesarch, LLC. donated a large scale wind tunnel to the Applied Math Fluids Lab in the spring of 2006. This wind tunnel was previously housed at Duke University in the Department of Zoology. This historic tunnel arrived at UNC in February, and is currently in the process of being upfit to be put back into use. The windspeed can reach speeds of up to 18 meters per second.

UNC officially launches Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Peter Mucha, co-investigator with Barbara Entwisle and other faculty in the Carolina Population Center on recently-announced NIH and NSF awards supporting work on agent-based models for household dynamics and population-environment relationships.

Welcome Sarah Williams, newly arrived in the department as an RTG Postdoctoral Fellow.

New group meeting: A new group meeting for students and faculty interested in biomechanics, morphology, and biophysics has been formed. Please visit the new IMP website (Integrative and Mathematical Morphology) for more details.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Peter Mucha, recipient of a 2007 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The award provides five years of support for Mucha's research group, including efficient model computations of fluid phenomena for various applications, research experiences for undergraduates in network science, and ongoing development of the two-semester BioCalculus course sequence. The NSF CAREER Award is one of the highest honors given by the NSF to young university faculty in science and engineering, and is intended to advance the development of their research and careers.

Some older news items remain available in our news archive.