News
- National Research Council of the National Academies sponsors awards for graduate, postdoctoral and senior researchers at federal laboratories and affiliated institutions. Apply online by deadline dates: August 1,
November 1, 2010 and February 1, 2011.
- Professor Vincent Bonini invited speaker at Special Session on Geometric Structures and PDEs at the AMS 2010 Spring Western Section Meeting, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, April 17-18.
- Professor Joe Borzellino invited speaker at international conference Automorphism Groups of Topological Structures at Eilat Campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) June 19-24.
- Professors Vincent Bonini, Jeff Liese, Anthony Mendes, Dana Paquin, Mark Stankus, and Stan Yoshinobu present at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco.
- Professor Todd Grundmeier and Lecturer Carole Simard present at AMTE Annual Conference in Irvine on The Van Hiele Levels of Prospective Secondary Mathematics Teachers.
- Professor Todor Todorov presented on Special Colombeau Algebras of Generalized Functions and Non-Standard Analysis at the International
Conference on Generalized Functions, Vienna (Austria), August 29-September 4, 2009. - Professor Lawrence Sze (with David Aukerman and Ben Kane) publishes paper in the Journal of Discrete Mathematics On simultaneous s-cores/t-cores.
- Professors Anton Kaul and Matthew White publish paper in the International Journal of Algebra on"Centralizers of Coxeter elements and inner automorphisms of right-angled Coxeter groups."
- Professor Charles Camp was an invited speaker, 1st PRIMA (Pacific Rim Mathematical Association) Congress, University of New South Wales, Sydney, AU, July 6-10, 2009, on Pattern detection in multivariate climatic time series: detecting the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s atmosphere.
Welcome to Math!
As a core department of an acclaimed polytechnic, the Department of Mathematics offers a broad spectrum of courses ranging from the applied to the theoretical, and the research interests of our faculty reflect this diversity as well. Department Chairman Don Rawlings invites you to read more....
Student research team to represent Cal Poly at 24th Annual CSU Student Research Competition
Math's student research team of Dana Duke, JP Horton, and Paul Sinz has been selected to represent Cal Poly at the annual CSU Student Research Competition to be held at San Jose State University April 30 and May 1, 2010. As one of only ten student research projects selected for the competition, Duke, Horton, and Sinz will present their summer research project Exact Solutions for Wind-Driven Coastal Upwelling and Downwelling over Sloping
Topography.
Noyce Scholarship Recipient Update
Cal Poly Math Graduate and Noyce Scholarship recipient Jackie Patterson is now a first year math 
teacher at Pioneer Valley High School in Santa Maria, CA. She teaches two-year and pre-algebra. She received a $20,000 Noyce Scholarship during her junior year at Cal Poly and writes that this “prestigious award has been an impressive addition to my resume, and I have no doubt that this program has helped me get a job as a full-time math teacher. The advisers, Todd Grundmeier and Elsa Medina, helped me with my application process to the district, ran valuable workshops in the summer, and have supported me as a Noyce Scholar in any way they can."
Students Attend AGU Fall 2009 Meeting
After conducting summer research, Professor Paul Choboter and students Dana Duke, JP Horton, and Paul Sinz presented a posted at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA, on “Exact Solutions for Wind-Driven Coastal Upwelling and Downwelling over Sloping Topography.” The exact solution to the Pedlosky upwelling model described flow over a constant-depth ocean. However, with a change of variables, the exact solution overconstant-depth ocean can be transformed into a new solution over variable-depth ocean for specific functional forms of the topography and also transformed into a solution that describes the downwelling process (where the winds and fluid paths reverse direction). During this research, they explored these new solutions and studied how the evolution of the velocity and ocean density depends on bottom slope, particularly in the downwelling case. They investigated the analytical solutions and compared these to more realistic simulations using the Princeton Ocean Model. The analytic solution captures well certain aspects of downwelling seen in the numerical simulations.
Summer Research 2009
Students who participated in this year's Summer Research Program conducted research with faculty advisors. Each student will present their research project at a national or regional mathematics conference, in addition to the annual College of Science and 
Mathematics Research Conference in the Spring. Dr. Anton Kaul worked with Cal Poly students Erin Kelly, Michael Mazzella, and Josh Pollitz on the project “Shellability in Group Theory.” In this project, they examined the
behavior of lexicographic shellability in infinite groups. In the course of the investigation,
they proved that local shellability is preserved
under various group theoretic constructions,
including free products and, more generally,
free products with amalgamation. Additional summer research projects included Coriolis Discretization and Vorticity Errors in Numerical Models with Professor Paul Choboter, Pattern Detection in Climatic Time Series with Professor Charles Camp, When Toeplitz and Hankel Matrices are Normal with Professor Caixing Gu, The Poset Tree of Graded Betti Numbers for a Fixed Hilbert Function
and the Degree to Height Function with Professor Ben Richert, and Geometric Problems on 2-Dimensional Orbifolds with Professor Joe Borzellino.
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Top Stories of 2008-09
Congratulations Graduates
Twenty-seven Math undergraduate students and one graduate student received diplomas. Five majors held minors in other disciplines.
Annual Awards Banquet
Math held its 2009 Annual Awards Banquet in May. Scholarships were awarded to 29 students and 14 students received awards.
Cal Poly's Math Team Ranks 74 in Putnam Competition
Math's three-person team of Kyle Chapman, Paul Coombs, and Thomas Furukawa placed 74 out of the 545 colleges entered. Congratulations to the team!
Students Attend MAA Meeting
Sarah Lyons and Mark Lydon presented a poster on their research work with Professor Anthony Mendes titled "Determining if the Matrix Representation of Transversal Set Partitions is Full Rank" at the MAA Northern California Section Meeting at MSRI in Berkeley. Megan Evan and Kevin Lamb presented a poster on "Designing a Traffic Circle" based on their work from the Mathematics Contest in Modeling, and Michael Mazzella and Ryan Harris presented on their research work with Professor Linda Patton "On Numerical Ranges of Linear Operators Satisfying T3= I." Each student received a certificate for their participation.