Undergraduate Student Awards

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2021

Several people from our department participated in the 2021 Virtual Section Meeting of the Louisiana / Mississippi Mathematical Association of America Section on Saturday 27 February 2021 and Saturday 6 March 2021.

Our math majors competed in the annual LA/MS MAA Conference competitions and did very well.

For the second year in a row, mathematics major Maxwell Reigner Kane was awarded 1st place in the student paper/presentation competition.

Our teams also did very well in the Student Team Competition. The team consisting of Andrew Bayard, Maxwell Reigner Kane, and Madi Angerdina placed second and the team consisting of Edward Babin, Isaac Kulp, and Phat Do placed third.

Ross Chiquet served as faculty advisor for both teams and supervised Maxwell Kane's research.

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2020

A large group from our department attended the Louisiana Mississippi MAA Section Meeting at Loyola University in New Orleans on 27-29 February 2020.

The UL Lafayette teams did very well in the Student Team Competition. The team consisting of Andrew Bayard, Maxwell Kane, Grace Sternaman, and Madi Angerdina placed first! The team consisting of Lance Myers, Edward Babin, Jacob Echols, and Nicholas Henderson placed third. Ross Chiquet served as faculty advisor for both teams.

In the student paper/presentation competition, Maxwell Kane placed first and C. Andrew Bayard placed second. Ross Chiquet and Amy Veprauskas supervised Maxwell Kane's research, Ross Chiquet and Logan Perry supervised Andrew Bayard's research.

Student Presentations

• The dynamics of a discrete-time, stage-structured, amphibian population model
  Maxwell Reigner Kane, Undergraduate, UL Lafayette
• Dynamics of frog populations under the influence of two diseases
  Nicholas Henderson, Undergraduate, UL Lafayette
• Cognitive hierarchy theory and the infinite centipede game
  Christopher Bayard, Undergraduate, UL Lafayette
• A comparative study of physics-informed deep learning models for discovering partial differential equations
  Duong Nguyen, UL Lafayette
• Analysis and applications of cognitive hierarchy theory for examples of two-player-two-action games
  Grace Sternaman and Madeleine Angerdina, Undergraduates, UL Lafayette

Main photo caption: Our student group at the LA-MS MAA 2020 meeting (L to R: Jacob Echols, Edward Babin, Lance Myers, Nicholas Henderson, Grace Sternaman, Madi Angerdina, Andrew Bayard, Maxwell Kane, and Ross Chiquet.

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2019

The UL Lafayette team consisting of: Christopher Bayard, Johnny Ha, Jacob Echols, and Patrick LeLeux (shown L to R in the photo below), placed second in the team competition at the Louisiana/Mississippi MAA Section meeting on February 21-23 at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. Please join us in congratulating the team members.

Eight of our mathematics students and 3 of our mathematics faculty attended the meeting. Christy Sue Langley gave a presentation about using games in education.

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2018

Our department was very successful in the competitions at the 2018 Louisiana/Mississippi Mathematical Association of America Section Meeting which we hosted this weekend.

One of our student teams placed second overall in the student team competition. The team, Cody Nash, Alex Fontenot, Grace Sternamen, and Lance Myers, was coached by Dr. Ross Chiquet. Dr. George Turcu, Blaise Heider, and Tommy Credeur also helped the team prepare for the competition.

High school student Mark Dibbs placed first overall in the student paper/presentation competition. He was advised by Dr. Amy Veprauskas.

Photo (left to right): Grace Sternamen, Ross Chiquet, Lance Myers, Alex Fontenot.

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2017

Several of our students and faculty attended the Louisiana Mississippi sectional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America on 16-18 February 2017 at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

Two of our students placed first in student paper/presentation competitions.

Alex Fontenot placed first in the undergraduate student paper/presentation competition. The title of his talk is Characterizing the Behavior of the Difference Equation x_n+1=(ax_n+b)(mod 1) (Ross Chiquet served as Alex's advisor).

Rainey Lyons placed 1st in the graduate student paper/presentation competition. The title of his talk is Picard's Iterative Method for Caputo Fractional ODE's (Ross Chiquet and A.S. Vatsala served as Rainey's advisors).

Photo (left to right): Alex Fontenot, Rainey Lyons, and Ross Chiquet.

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2016

Eight of our undergraduate mathematics students attended the Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America annual meeting at Louisiana State University Shreveport (February 25-27, 2016 in Shreveport).

We had two teams compete in the Student Test Competition. Team A with members John Patterson, Austin Hansen, Alex Fontenot, and Brianna Lawson placed second overall. Team B with members Nick Pyfrom-Day, Rainey Lyons, Bailey Ross, and Alyssa Bienvenu placed third overall.

Rainey Lyons, one of our math majors and a member of team B, placed second overall in the Student Paper Competition. Rainey presented a talk based on his paper "Requirements to Insure the Evolution of Altruistic Genes in E. Coli." Here is his abstract: Altruistic cells in organisms are programmed to terminate themselves if they are a threat to the colony. We convert a system of differential equations to a first order cubic differential equation and solve numerically. We find requirements for the fecundity and mortality function that allow evolution or extinction of the altruistic gene.

Ross Chiquet supervised Rainey's research and served as faculty advisor for both teams.

Photo caption: Our student group at the LA-MS MAA 2016 meeting (L to R: Austin Hansen, John Patterson, Rainey Lyons, Baily Ross, Alyssa Bienvenu, Brianna Lawson, Alex Fontenot, Nick Pyfrom-Day, and Ross Chiquet.)

Mathematical Association of America Louisiana/Mississippi Section Meeting 2015

Several people from our department attended the Louisiana / Mississippi Mathematical Association of America Section annual meeting at the University of Southern Mississippi - Gulf Coast in Long Beach, Mississippi on 26-28 February 2015. Two teams from UL Lafayette competed in the Student Team Competition: Team A comprised of John Patterson, Tommy Credeur, Ningke Song, and James Mallory; and, Team B comprised of Tyler Montgomery, Christopher Sam, and Austin Hansen. Team A won first place in the Student Team Competition.

Tyler Montgomery, one of our math majors and a member of team B, won first place in the Student Paper Competition. Tyler presented a talk based on his paper "A matrix population model for Cuvier's beaked whales." Ross Chiquet supervised Tyler's research and served as faculty advisor for both teams.

Photo caption: Our student group at the LA-MS MAA 2015 meeting (L to R: Ross Chiquet, Tommy Credeur, Ningke Song, Austin Hansen, James Mallory, Tyler Montgomery, John Patterson, Christopher Sam).