The 2026 Annual Meeting of the Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America, which was held 26-28 February 2026 in Moody Hall and the Student Union, was a great success.
Approximately 100 undergraduate students and 50 faculty from more than fifteen institutions across Louisiana and Mississippi attended the meeting.
Some of our students and faculty helped out at the Mu Alph Theta Mathematics Competition at David Thibodaux STEM Magnet Academy on Saturday 8 November 2025.
On Friday, 18 October 2025 the College of Sciences hosted approximately 500 high school students at Science Day 2025, Sponsored by Halliburton. We hosted visitors from 17 high schools representing 13 different cities. The students participated in activities led by each of our departments and schools. They were able to interact with our students and faculty and learn about the many opportunities we have to offer.
On the evening of Thursday, 16 October 2025, the college of sciences celebrated the research activities of our undergraduate and graduate students at a research poster presentation and reception. Student researchers exhibited eighteen posters and explained their research to the visitors. A large group of alumni, students, faculty, and friends of the college were able to attend this exciting and informative event. Three of our mathematics students presented their research: undergraduate student Scott Whitman, graduate student Lovelyn Madu, and graduate student Saburi Rasheed.
Our Fall 2025 Mathematics Colloquium Series kicks off on Thursday 4 September 2025. We meet in Maxim Doucet Hall room 211 at 3:30 (coffee at 3:15).
Our first speaker is the distinguished mathematician Mourad Ismail who recently joined us as visiting professor. He will speak on Some Applications of Orthogonal Polynomials.
Here is the Abstract: I will discuss some applications of orthogonal polynomials and moment problems to probability, Schrodinger operators, and time permitting to some combinatorial problems.
The Louisiana Chapter of the American Statistical Association held its Spring 2025 meeting on Monday 19 May 2025 in the Lions Eye Center Building on the Louisiana Health Science Center Campus in New Orleans. There were 12 talks covering a wide variety of interesting topics. Five of the speakers were graduate students and the other 7 were faculty. Two of our graduate students (Nurudeen Ajadi and Justin Dunnam) and one of our faculty (Mo Li) spoke.
The mathematics department is pleased to announce and celebrate our three BS, two MS, and four PhD Spring 2025 graduates. The bachelor of science graduates are Aubree Pipes, Cullen Tillson, and Allison Zanyk. The master of science graduates are Ayesha Saif and Sashen Fernando. The doctor of philosophy graduates are Alain Lionel Fogang Takoutsing, Gboyega Adepoju, Jonathon Villareal, and Sameera Hewage. Some photos from the College of Sciences Commencement Ceremony, at the Cajundome on Saturday 17 May 2025, are provided below.
Four mathematics department, Spring 2025, PhD candidates were honored at the Graduate School Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on 15 May 2025.
Alain Lionel Fogang Takoutsing (area: Analysis, advisor: Leonel Robert Gonzales)
Our PhD student Jenita Jahangir and her advisor Amy Veprauskas gave presentations at the Math & Ecology Synthesis for Agriculture Conference (MESA) at Texas Tech University. This cross-disciplinary conference which ran from Tuesday evening, 29 April 2025, through Friday afternoon, 2 May 2025, was held in the Dairy Barn on the campus of Texas Tech University. This lively and informative conference featured speakers from throughout the United States.
Photo caption: Brian Ceng, Cassia Chen, Emersen Chen, Daniel Cheng, John Wang, Marcus Whitman, and Nora Whitman competing
