1996 Personal News

• Thomas Schlumprecht's paper ``The distortion problem'' (with Edward Odell) received a Featured Review in Mathematical Reviews 96a:46031.

• Dr. Ronald G. Douglas, formerly professor of mathematics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was named executive vice president and provost at Texas A&M University effective March 1, 1996. Professor Douglas is a world expert on operator theory and operator algebras.

• At its March 22, 1996 meeting, the Texas A&M University Board of Regents approved the promotion of David C. Dobson to Associate Professor with tenure and Albert Boggess and Emil J. Straube to Professor.

• Grants awarded by the National Science Foundation:

  • Arthur Hobbs, ``Paul Catlin Memorial Workshop on graph minors and Eulerian subgraphs,'' NSF grant number DMS-9623215, $6,200, May 1, 1996 to October 31, 1996.

  • Tamás Erdélyi, ``Polynomials and polynomial inequalities,'' NSF grant number DMS-9623156, $64,611, June 1, 1996 to May 31, 1999.

  • William B. Johnson and Gilles Pisier, ``Geometry of Banach spaces and operator spaces,'' NSF grant number DMS-9623260, $242,700, June 1, 1996 to May 31, 1999.

  • Carl M. Pearcy, Jr., ``Operators on Hilbert space,'' NSF grant number DMS-9623480, $39,000, June 1, 1996 to May 31, 1998.

  • Edward S. Letzter, ``Prime ideals and subalgebras of Noetherian Hopf algebras,'' NSF grant number DMS-9623579, $60,000, June 15, 1996 to May 31, 1999.

  • James H. Bramble and Raytcho D. Lazarov, ``Construction of accurate, robust and efficient numerical techniques for partial differential equations,'' NSF grant number DMS-9626567, $195,000, August 15, 1996 to July 31, 1999.

  • Jon T. Pitts, ``Applications in the geometric calculus of variations,'' NSF grant number DMS-9626560, $50,000, August 15, 1996 to July 31, 1997.

  • Harold P. Boas, Huai-Dong Cao, Paulo Lima-Filho, Jon T. Pitts, Peter F. Stiller, Emil J. Straube, and Rekha R. Thomas, ``Mathematical Sciences/GIG: Geometry, Analysis and Topology: Research, technology, industry and education,'' NSF grant number DMS-9632028, $400,334, September 1, 1996 to August 31, 1999.

• On May 2, 1996, Harold Boas received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Research from the Texas A&M University Association of Former Students.

• May 1996 recipients of Department of Mathematics awards for

  • outstanding teaching:
    • David Larson
    • N. Sivakumar
    • Ellen Toby
  • outstanding service:
    • Sue Geller
    • Vince Schielack
    • Phil Yasskin

• In August, 1996, Richard E. Ewing received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bergen in Norway. He is also a 1996 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Engineering Section.

• Professor Joseph E. Pasciak joined the department in fall 1996.

• Starting fall 1996, Vince Schielack became the director of the Center for Mathematics & Science Education.

• At the College of Science Faculty meeting on September 19, 1996, Dante DeBlassie and Ellen Toby received Association of Former Students College-Level Distinguished Achievement Awards in Teaching. Also recognized at the meeting were Mentors from the department: Don Allen and Arthur Hobbs.

• On October 22, 1996, Denise Kirschner was honored as the Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar for the College of Science during a luncheon in the Clayton W. Williams Jr. Alumni Center on campus.

• Rupini Kamat was born to Laximi Kamat and Vishnu G. Kamat on December 3, 1996.