Seven Undergraduate Students Receive 2009 Trjitzinsky Awards

October 22, 2009

Providence, RI: The AMS has made US$21,000 in awards to seven students (names and schools below) through the Waldemar J. Trjitzinsky Memorial Fund. The awards will assist the students in their pursuit of careers in mathematics. The recipients, who each received $3000, are:

Alison Lynette Ashe, University of Vermont
A native of Buffalo, NY, now living in Bristol, VT, Alison Ashe worked in technical theater before beginning to explore careers in mathematics and engineering. In 2008, she returned to full-time studies at the University of Vermont, pursuing a baccalaureate in applied mathematics with computer science and business administration minors. This award will help her to maintain full-time student status through the completion of her degree, at which time she plans on graduate studies in industrial engineering.

Kendall Olivia Brown, Truman State University

Brown, from St. Charles, MO, is a sophomore at Truman State University, Missouri's highly selective public liberal arts and sciences university, in Kirksville. She has a 4.0 GPA and is pursuing a bachelor's in mathematics and a Master of Arts in mathematics education. She is the current president of the Kappa Mu Epsilon Chapter and a student member of the Missouri State Teachers Association at Truman State University. Her goal is to be a master teacher of mathematics.

Zehui Chen, Smith College
Chen, an international student from China, attended Jinshan Senior High School in Guangdong, and came to attend Smith College in the fall of 2006. She is a mathematics major with a concentration in statistics. She enjoys solving math problems, both in courses and in activities sponsored by the mathematics department, and worked on a special studies project with Professor Katherine Halvorsen in statistical consulting that involved using math skills to solve real-world problems and improve the quality of an industrial product. Chen reports that she looks forward to increasing her mathematics skills and ultimately using her expertise to solve real-world problems.

Jonathan Jordan Edwards, Kenyon College
Edwards is a strong student with a deep interest in both mathematics and theoretical physics. At Kenyon he is majoring in mathematics and minoring in physics; he has conducted undergraduate research in both fields. In the spring of 2008, he received an Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). With this scholarship, he will do a summer internship at a NOAA facility, where he hopes to get involved in modeling storm systems and working with satellites run by NOAA. He spent his pre-school years in Pakistan, his elementary school years in Massachusetts, his middle school years in Arizona, and his high school years in Indonesia. Currently, as a junior at Kenyon, he speculates that his next "home" will be determined by the location of a strong Ph.D. program.

David Hassan, University of California, Santa Barbara

Hassan, a Phi Beta Kappa student with a 3.93 GPA, is double majoring in pure mathematics and physics. He is a returning student, completing his studies after a tour of duty as an Arabic interpreter with the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq.

Ana-Cristina Cerda Jimenez, California State University, Fresno

Jimenez is a first-generation college student working towards a bachelor's in mathematics. She intends to continue her education in a graduate program. She has always been fascinated by science and its applications, but it wasn't until college that she became much more interested in mathematics. She started as a chemistry major but switched to mathematics during her second semester. She is a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society, and last year was involved in a summer research project in knot theory. In addition to her interests in church activities, creative writing, graphic design and piano, she enjoys teaching; since her sophomore year in high school she has consistently tutored in mathematics, English, Spanish and the sciences.

Mantatisi S. Walker, Jackson State University

Walker, a senior, is majoring in mathematics education. She plans to teach high school mathematics (algebra I, algebra II, advanced algebra) in the Mississippi Delta, and as she is teaching she plans to further her education in graduate school. She is a Dean's List Scholar, and aside from her academic studies she is a SIMET (Students Investing in Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology) Counselor, member of the Mississippi Association of Educators and National Education Association, volunteer tutor for various high schools, and a participant and presenter at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. Her career goals include directing a mathematics program for high school students as well as being a very influential professor at a local college.

The Waldemar J. Trjitzinsky Memorial Fund is made possible by a bequest from the estate of Waldemar J., Barbara G. and Juliette Trjitzinsky, which stipulates that the income from the bequest should be used to assist needy students who may be in danger of not completing the degree program in mathematics for financial reasons. The AMS chose seven geographically distributed schools in a random drawing from the pool of the Society's institutional members, and the mathematics departments at those schools then chose the above students to receive the funds to assist them in pursuit of careers in mathematics.

Waldemar J. Trjitzinsky was born in Russia in 1901 and received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1926. He taught at a number of institutions before taking a position at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he remained for the rest of his professional life. He showed particular concern for students of mathematics and in some cases made personal efforts to ensure that financial considerations would not hinder their studies. Trjitzinsky was the author of about 60 mathematics papers, primarily on quasi-analytic functions and partial differential equations. A member of the AMS for 46 years, he died in 1973.

Contact:

Public Awareness Office
American Mathematical Society
201 Charles St.
Providence, RI 02904
Email: paoffice at ams dot org
Phone: 401-455-4000
Fax: 401-331-3842

Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.