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Featured from our Fall 2020 Newsletter

View the full PDF of the Fall 2020 newsletter.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Adam Larios teaches Math 812T: Geometry for Geometry Teachers on Zoom in July 2020 to high school mathematics teachers from across the U.S.

Teaching in times of a pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic caused an end to all spring semester in-person classes at UNL in March of 2020, the Department of Mathematics only had two weeks to transition all courses and departmental resources fully online and meet all of its students’ needs. Fortunately, the department was prepared. Since 2012, the First Year Math Task Force, led by Allan Donsig, has been working to improve instruction and student learning in introductory large-enrollment mathematics courses, including providing consistent instructional resources for the course instructors.. Read More

Don Schneider of Penn State

Alumni news: Schneider leading Penn State astronomy since 2011

Professor Donald Schneider has been teaching the yearlong sophomore introductory class for astronomy majors at Pennsylvania State University for over a quarter-century. Schneider, the department head of astronomy at Penn State, also has published over 950 peer-reviewed articles on a variety of subjects, from asteroids and exoplanets to the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe. Read More

Katie Haymaker and her family

Alumni news: Haymaker awarded by MAA for expository paper

Nebraska alumna Kathryn Haymaker, an associate professor of mathematics at Villanova University, was a 2020 recipient of the prestigious Carl B. Allendoerfer Award from the Mathematical Association of America. Haymaker and her research collaborator Beth Malmskog are one of two groups of collaborators who have been named as the recipients of the award, in recognition of their 2019 expository article, “What (Quilting) Circles Can Be Squared?” published in Mathematics Magazine. Read More

Lucas Sabalka uses the Ocuvera system at Bryan Health in Lincoln. Ocuvera is lending a camera’s eye view on protecting hospital patients, with the goal of fall prevention. Dr. Sabalka's job is to teach a computer how to monitor a patient and automatically detect when the patient is doing something that might increase their risk of falling.

Alumni at Nebraska Global, Ocuvera forge partnership with department

By employing machine learning, computer visioning, and algorithms, Nebraska alumnus Lucas Sabalka gives the gift of time to the medical field through his work at Ocuvera, a Lincoln-based Nebraska Global company. Inspired from the Latin for “true eye,” Ocuvera is lending a camera’s eye view on protecting hospital patients, with the goal of fall prevention. Read More

Since Steve Dunbar, professor emeritus of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Kristie Pfabe, professor and department chair of mathematics at Nebraska Wesleyan University, discovered their shared interest in the subject of gerrymandering, they have given a talk to 22 different groups since 2018.

Traveling talk on gerrymandering merges mathematics, politics

For two years, Steve Dunbar and Kristie Pfabe have been collaborating on a traveling talk about the timely subject of gerrymandering and the ways in which mathematics can be used to address this societal issue and help to eradicate it. Since Dunbar, professor emeritus of Mathematics at UNL, and Pfabe, professor and department chair of mathematics at Nebraska Wesleyan University, discovered their shared interest in the subject, they have given the talk to 22 different groups, ranging from a 15-minute presentation to a four-week mini-course for adults. Read More

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