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Events

Alumni Awards highlight impact at home and abroad

The College of Science community gathered on Friday, November 12, 2021, for the 2021 Alumni Awards, recognizing alumni who stand out in their accomplishments across industry, philanthropy and research.

Kendra Jackson working in lab.
Students

How undergraduate research drives student success at OSU

Oregon State funds more high-impact undergraduate research experiences than any other university in the state.

Ron Schoenheit standing in front of his innovative curtains
Alumni and Friends

Wire-working pioneer receives Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award

Ron Schoenheit (B.S. Mathematics ’65) is the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award for his accomplishments that have brought honor, distinction and visibility to the College of Science.

Judy Faucett holding a crab.
Alumni and Friends

Students with disabilities accomplish their dreams with Distinguished Alumna-founded scholarship

Judy Faucett, recipient of the College of Science 2021 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, founded the Rise Scholarship – the first scholarship at Oregon State exclusively serving students with disabilities.

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News

Outstanding incoming graduate students received ARCS Oregon scholarships

Five incoming graduate students were awarded 2021-2022 ARCS Foundation Oregon Chapter scholarships. This year, ARCS Oregon is supporting a record number of 79 scholars: 25 at OHSU, 44 at OSU and 10 at UO.

Oregon State mathematicians Axel Saenz Rodriguez and Swati Patel
Faculty and Staff

Welcoming new mathematicians to Oregon State

The College of Science welcomes Swati Patel and Axel Saenz Rodriguez who joined the Department of Mathematics as tenure-track assistant professors in September.

Michael Waterman
News

Genomics pioneer paves the way for first-generation students

Genomics pioneer Michael Waterman (Mathematics ’64, ’66) receives the 2021 Lifetime Achievement in Science Award for his remarkable accomplishments that have brought honor, distinction and visibility to Oregon State University.

aug2021_math_alum_uses_disease_modeling
Alumni and Friends

Mathematics alum uses disease modeling to help keep OSU community safe

Peter Banwarth (M.S. ’12) is an epidemiologist and public health data scientist with the Benton County Health Department in Oregon. He has developed models to guide county health policies on testing, safety and health measures for employees and the public to minimize infections and deaths in Corvallis and nearby areas.

Holly Swisher standing in a backyard.
Faculty and Staff

New NSF award to support 'rich and intricate discoveries' in mathematics

Professor of mathematics Holly Swisher was awarded a NSF grant to investigate a number of problems that relate to modular and automorphic forms, which have played a central role in many major problems in number theory over the last century.

Bernard and Suzanne McGrath sit together in a home wearing Oregon State attire.
Alumni and Friends

Alumni couple prefers tax-advantaged way to support OSU community

The McGraths put their knowledge of numbers to use and leveraged a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) to make a major gift to their alma mater while realizing a significant tax benefit.

“The QCD is the Holy Grail of donating,” Sue said. “Many of our friends didn’t know about it until we described it to them..."

OSU Graduation cap
Students

The Class of 2021 succeeds against all odds

The College of Science will graduate 670 undergraduate students with baccalaureate degrees in 2020-21, including 68 Honors graduates.

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Students

Oregon native – and role model to young girls – carves her own path in mathematics

Jennifer Smucker, mathematics senior, heads to Virginia Tech in the fall to pursue a Ph.D. in math. She hopes to be a role model for other women in STEM.

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Students

Pi Mu Epsilon Induction Ceremony

The OSU Pi Mu Epsilon chapter honored and inducted 33 undergraduates, who have shown exceptional scholarly activity in mathematics, into the national mathematics honor society.

Portrait photo of Peter Banwarth.
Alumni and Friends

Epidemiologist and public health data scientist

Alumni profile of Epidemiologist and public health data scientist Peter Banwarth.

Goldwater Scholarship
Malgo Peszynska standing in front of a tree outside of Kidder Hall.
Faculty and Staff

Applied mathematician Malgo Peszynska receives prestigious Geosciences Career Prize

Malgo Peszynska, professor of applied mathematics at Oregon State University, has received the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Geosciences Career Prize.

Eight members of math club meeting through Zoom.
Students

OSU Math Club Online

The OSU Math Club has been instrumental in keeping the undergraduate student community connected.

A collage of 14 undergraduate students that were apart of the 2020 OSU Research Experience for Undergraduates.
Students

2020 Research Experience for Undergraduates

The 2020 OSU Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, directed by Prof. Holly Swisher, was a great success!

Elisar Barbar
Women in Science

Women scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19

In recognition of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, held on February 11, we acknowledge the women faculty, students and alumnae of the OSU College of Science.

Dr. Michael Waterman
Alumni and Friends

Michael Waterman, 'father of computational biology,' receives prestigious award

Genomics pioneer Dr. Michael Waterman (’64, ’66) has received the William Benter Prize in Applied Mathematics. Waterman, a distinguished College of Science alumnus, is widely regarded as a trailblazer in computational biology. His work in the 1980s formed one of the theoretical cornerstones for many DNA mapping and sequencing projects, including the Human Genome Project.

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Alumni and Friends

Meet a Science Grad: Scott Clark

At Oregon State, Scott Clark (08) was able to pursue majors in physics, mathematics and computational physics all at once. Today he is the CEO and co-founder of SigOpt.

Malgorzata Peszysnka standing in front of a tree.
Faculty and Staff

Applied mathematician elected 2020 AAAS Fellow

Malgorzata Peszynska, elected in the section on Mathematics, is the 18th faculty member in the College of Science to be elected as AAAS Fellow.

students in masks sit on a bench on OSU's campus
News

Oregon State University receives $2 million Packard Foundation grant to expand TRACE-COVID-19 nationally

Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics, or TRACE-COVID-19, was launched by OSU in April 2020 with door-to-door sampling in Corvallis and expanded to other cities around the state while also adding a wastewater testing component. In December, OSU received a $2 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to create a national TRACE Center that will expand the OSU’s COVID-19 public health project to other states.

15 students collaged onto a Zoom screen that reads "Welcome New Graduate Students 2020-2021."
Graduate students

New Graduate Students 2020-2021

The Mathematics department welcomed 15 new graduate students

Portrait photo of Mary Beisiegel.
Faculty and Staff

Mary Beisiegel awarded new NSF grants

Congratulations to Mary Beisiegel who has been awarded two new National Science Foundation grants!

Depiction of a magnetic field with text that reads "NSF Computational Mathematics grant award."
Research

Computational Mathematics grant awarded to Bokil and Gibson

Congratulations to Vrushali Bokil and Nathan Gibson, who were awarded $225K funding from NSF’s Computational Mathematics program for their project "Computational and Multi-Scale Methods for Nonlinear Electromagnetic Models in Plasmas and Nanocomposites".

Carrie Manore standing in front of a whiteboard.
Alumni and Friends

Math alumna’s disease modeling at national lab aiding public health initiatives to combat COVID-19

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has placed mathematical models in the spotlight as they have become central to public health interventions, planning, resource allocation and forecasts.

The back door of Kidder Hall on a sunny day.
Faculty and Staff

New Faculty Hires 2020-2021

The Mathematics Department is pleased to welcome into our community two new fixed-term assistant professors, Patrik Nabelek and Kristen Vroom, as well as two new instructors, Samaneh Yourdkhani and Stacey Vaughn.

Students use a variety of tools to conduct their summer research.
Students

Summer fellowships awarded to exceptional science students

The College of Science is proud to announce that 41 science students have received summer undergraduate research awards.

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Faculty and Staff

Faculty excellence: Promotions and tenure 2020

Congratulations to the following faculty for receiving promotions and /or tenure for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Megan Tucker standing in park
Students

Mathematics and writing senior awarded Department of Energy fellowship

Megan Tucker will graduate next month with a substantial amount of research experience under her belt: She was awarded the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship, which gave her the opportunity to work on an interdisciplinary team at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Albany, Oregon, during the summer of 2019. The new knowledge gained from her internship helped her land a job as a technical writer with Amazon Web Services — a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments.

Three Sisters covered in snow.
Events

Cascade RAIN 2020

The Department of Mathematics at Oregon State University (OSU) recently hosted the seventh annual Cascade Regional Applied Interdisciplinary and Numerical Mathematics (RAIN) Meeting.

Banner for the Northwest Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium.
Events

NUMS 2.0

The NUMS steering committee, along with the PiMUC organizers, were determined to hold the line during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Patrick Donaghue standing in front of a bush.
Faculty and Staff

New Instructors 2019-2020

The mathematics department welcomed new instructors in 2019-2020.

Choah Shin
Graduate students

Graduate science fellowship supports interdisciplinary mathematics and energy research

The 2019-2020 Larry Martin and Joyce B. O’Neill Fellowship was awarded to fifth-year mathematics Ph.D. student Choah Shin for high achievement in computational modeling.