News & Events

The Department of Mathematical Sciences' Dr. Bridget Tenner has been elected to the 2025 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. Congratuations, Dr. Tenner!

The goals of the Fellows of the AMS program are:

• To create an enlarged class of mathematicians recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the profession.
• To honor not only the extraordinary but also the excellent.
• To lift the morale of the profession by providing an honor more accessible than those currently available.
• To make mathematicians more competitive for awards, promotion, and honors when they are being compared with colleagues from other disciplines.
• To support the advancement of more mathematicians in leadership positions in their own institutions and in the broader society.

Our department is excited to welcome a new full-time faculty member in Dr. Williams Chukwu! Dr. Chukwu earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Johannesburg in 2021. He then held postdoctoral positions at Universitas Airlangga Surabaya Indonesia in 2021 and the University of California San Diego in 2022, and the position of Visiting Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University from 2022-2024, before joining the faculty at DePaul University as a Professional Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Effective July 1, 2024, the Department of Mathematical Sciences' Dr. Hung-Chih Ku has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure.

Dr. Ku earned his PhD in Statistics from Oklahoma State University in 2012. He then held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from 2012 to 2015, before joining the faculty at DePaul University in 2015.

Congratulations, Dr. Ku!

Each year the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Walter A. Pranger Award to an outstanding full-time undergraduate student who has achieved a superior academic record in upper level math courses and who has shown an interest in advancing the study of the mathematical sciences. The 2024 recipient of the Walter A. Pranger Award is Owen Levens. Congratulations Owen!

Each year, the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Outstanding Student Award to a graduating senior who has demonstrated excellence (broadly defined) in their mathematics career at DePaul University. The 2024 recipient of the Oustanding Student Award is Richard Keys. Congratulations Richard!

Along with the other members of the College of Science and Health's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, the Department of Mathematical Sciences' Dr. Sarah Bockting-Conrad has been awarded the Provost's Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The overall purpose of this award is to recognize an individual faculty member or group of faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in the pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion at DePaul. The award is announced at the University Convocation each autumn.

Congratulations, Dr. Bockting-Conrad!

The Department of Mathematical Sciences' Dr. David Sher has been awarded the University Research Council's Spirit of Inquiry Award.

The Spirit of Inquiry Award honors specific research, scholarly or creative achievements that exhibit commitment to that spirit of creative inquiry, which we endeavor to inspire in our students. The awards are announced at Convocation each autumn and the awardees' names are added to a roster of Spirit of Inquiry award winners in the Executive Offices.

Congratulations, Dr. Sher!

Three DePaul University mathematics students---Reed Action, Blake Shirman, and Daniel Toal---working with their professor T. Kyle Petersen, discovered a new solution to a whimsical math puzzle about a malicious maitre d’ who is sabotaging a table of diners and trying to leave as many diners napkinless as possible. The story and a video are featured in a recent DePaul University press release. The students' work will be published in the American Mathematical Monthly.

Effective July 1, 2023, Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Christopher Drupieski has been promoted to the rank of Professor. Congratulations, Dr. Drupieski!

Dr. Drupieski earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Virginia in 2009. He then spent three years as a VIGRE Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Georgia before joining the faculty at DePaul University in 2012. Dr. Drupieski was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2016. Dr. Drupieski's research interests focus on the representation theory and cohomology of algebraic groups, Lie algebras, Lie superalgebras, finite (super)group schemes, and related mathematical structures.

Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Emily Barnard has been selected as the 2023 Faculty Mentor of the Year. Congratulations, Dr. Barnard!

The CSH Mentor of the Year award is made by CSH seniors, based on student nominations of faculty who have made a positive impact on students through their mentorship. Dr. Barnard will receive her award at the CSH Honors Celebration.

Each year the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Walter A. Pranger Award to an outstanding full-time undergraduate student who has achieved a superior academic record in upper level math courses and who has shown an interest in advancing the study of the mathematical sciences. The 2023 recipient of the Walter A. Pranger Award is Rachel Taylor. Congratulations Rachel!

Each year, the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Outstanding Student Award to a graduating senior who has demonstrated excellence (broadly defined) in their mathematics career at DePaul University. The 2023 recipient of the Oustanding Student Award is Kathryn Griggs. Congratulations Kathryn!

In Summer 2023, four local undergraduates will spend 8 weeks engaging in full-time mathematical research, thanks to funding from the Mathematical Association America's (MAA) National Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (NREUP). The 2023 NREUP at DePaul University is being run by Department of Mathematical Sciences faulty Dr. Emily Barnard and Dr. Sarah Bockting-Conrad.

The 2023 NREUP at DePaul University will focus on the relatively new field of graph b-colorings. A b-coloring is a special kind of proper vertex coloring in which every color class must have at least one vertex which is adjacent to all other color classes. The largest number of colors that can be used in a b-coloring is called the b-chromatic number of the graph. Our students will build on existing results about b-colorings and b-chromatic numbers to study b-colorings of various graph families. Students will leave the program with a toolbox for exploring research questions in graph theory.

For more information, see the 2023 NREUP page.

DePaul University Mathematical Sciences major Leslye Rodriguez was one of 10 undergraduate students in 2022 to be awarded an Undergraduate Opportunity Award from the American Mathematical Society. Congratulations, Leslye!

The AMS Undergraduate Opportunity Awards are financial prizes designed to help undergraduate students pursue careers in mathematics. The awards go to students at colleges and universities randomly selected each year from the American Mathematical Society’s institutional members, and the number of recipients and scholarship amount vary. Read more about the award winners on the AMS website.

Applied Mathematics graduate students Michael Bonthron and Jason Echevarria were recently featured in a DePaul Newsline article. Read about their work by clicking here.

Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Sarah Bockting Conrad was one of three faculty in the College of Science and Health to be selected for the 2022 Quality of Instruction Council Excellence in Teaching Award. Congratulations, Dr. Bockting-Conrad!

Candidates for the Excellence in Teaching Award may be nominated by a student or by a faculty colleague. The College of Science and Health Teaching and Learning Committee then reviews the nomination materials from faculty in the college before submitting up to three nominees (two tenure-track faculty and one term faculty member) to the DePaul University Quality of Instruction Council.

Dr. Bockting-Conrad will be officially recognized for her award at Academic Convocation in September 2022.

Read about all of the awardees in DePaul Newsline.

Effective July 1, 2022, Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Ilie Ugarcovici has been promoted to the rank of Professor. Congratulations Dr. Ugarcovici!

Dr. Ugarcovici earned his PhD in Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University in 2004. He then served for two years as a G.C. Evans Instructor at Rice University before joining the faculty at DePaul University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2006. Dr. Ugarcovici was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure in 2011. Dr. Ugarcovici currently serves as the Graduate Program Director for the Applied Mathematics program. Dr. Ugarcovici's research interests are in dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and population dynamics.

Effective July 1, 2022, Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Sarah Bockting-Conrad has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure. Congratulations Dr. Bockting-Conrad!

Dr. Bockting-Conrad earned her PhD in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2014. She then held a one-year appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College before joining the faculty at DePaul University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2015. Dr. Bockting-Conrad's research interests are in tridiagonal pairs, Lie theory, algebraic combinatorics, and quantum groups.

Effective July 1, 2022, Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty member Dr. Yiou Li has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure. Congratulations Dr. Li!

Dr. Li earned her PhD in Applied Mathematics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2014. She then held an appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor at DePaul University for two years before joining the faculty as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in 2016. Dr. Li's research interests are in statistics and computational mathematics.

Each year the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Walter A. Pranger Award to an outstanding full-time undergraduate student who has achieved a superior academic record in upper level math courses and who has shown an interest in advancing the study of the mathematical sciences. The 2022 recipient of the Walter A. Pranger Award is An Luu. Congratulations An!

Each year, the Department of Mathematical Sciences awards the Outstanding Student Award to a graduating senior who has demonstrated excellence (broadly defined) in their mathematics career at DePaul University. The 2022 recipient of the Oustanding Student Award is Isabella Petri. Congratulations Isabella!

Department of Mathematical Sciences faculty Dr. Emily Barnard and Dr. Karl Liechty have been awarded a grant from the Mathematical Association of America's (MAA) National Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (NREUP) for Summer 2022. Congratulations Dr. Barnard and Dr. Liechty!

The NREUP supports the participation of mathematics undergraduates from historically underrepresented groups, through focused and challenging research experiences, to increase their interest in advanced degrees and careers in mathematics. The 2022 NREUP at DePaul University will provide stipends to four undergraduates as they spend 8 weeks engaging full-time in mathematics research.

The 2022 NREUP at DePaul University will focus on the relatively new field of  dynamical algebraic combinatorics. Broadly speaking, problems in dynamical algebraic combinatorics investigate enumerative questions about the orbit of a combinatorially defined map on some algebraic object. We will focus on two key maps on the symmetric group: the pop-stack sorting map and the kappa map. A typical question is: For an invertible map, is the average of "size" of each orbit the same? Our students will build on existing results about the behavior of these maps for the set of all permutations and for permutations which are 312-avoiding to study the maps on other pattern-avoiding permutations. Students will leave with a toolbox for exploring research questions in a variety of interconnected mathematical fields, including dynamical systems, extremal, algebraic and geometric combinatorics, and possibly topology and representation theory.

At the end of the day on June 30, 2021, Professor Ahmed Zayed concluded an incredible 20-year stint as the Chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Dr. Zayed joined the DePaul faculty in 2001 as the result of a targeted search to hire a new Chair for the Department of Mathematical Sciences. In his term as Chair, Dr. Zayed oversaw many transformations within the department, including the hiring of almost all of the department's current full-time faculty. The Department owes much of its success over the past two decades to Dr. Zayed's steady leadership and administration.

Dr. Zayed will be succeeded as Department Chair by Professor Kyle Petersen.

Effective July 1, 2021, Dr. Yevgenia Kashina has been promoted to the rank of Professor. Congratulations Dr. Kashina!

Dr. Kashina earned her PhD in Mathematics from the University of Southern California in 1999. She then spent one year as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, CA, and two years as a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Associate at Syracuse University, before joining the faculty at DePaul University in 2002. Dr. Kashina's research is in Hopf algebras.

Effective July 2021, Professor Bridget Tenner has been awarded a 3-year $175,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematical Sciences to investigate the subject of Higher-Order Pattern Containment. Congratulations Professor Tenner!

From the abstract of Professor Tenner's award:

Permutations are orderings of a set of objects, typically positive integers. They can model aspects of many different problems and scenarios, and they are used throughout mathematics. A permutation pattern is a subset of a permutation that appears in a particular order. For example, it might have an increasing subsequence of some length, or it might avoid having a large number followed by two smaller numbers. The presence or absence of particular patterns can be critical to features of the data that the permutation is modeling, which has led to great interest in the analysis of permutation patterns for the past several decades. The goal of this project is to establish a broader context to the traditional study of permutation patterns. Historically, research in this area has been almost entirely in terms of a binary question: does a permutation contain a given pattern or does the permutation avoid it? Recent evidence has shown that the specific number of times that a pattern appears is of great importance, and consequently a more granular notion of pattern containment should be studied. Specifically, the question should instead be: how many times does the permutation contain the pattern? This project will address that higher-order question in several ways, with implications for combinatorics and its connections to algebra, topology, and computer science.