Alessandro Pizzo will be a plenary speaker at the XVI International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Prague this summer. Following the tradition formed over several decades, the triennial congresses are the largest mathematical-physics conventions.

Matthew Rathbun has recently been awarded the UC Davis Dissertation Year Fellowship for 2009-10. This fellowship provides a research and travel allowance in addition to a stipend and fees to international and domestic graduate students demonstrating strong potential for university teaching and research.

UC Davis Department of Mathematics will host a Low Dimensional Topology Conference in Honor of Marty Scharlemann's 60th Birthday, the MARTY-FEST, coming up June 23-25.

There will be a joint UC Davis Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium with speaker Emmanuel J. Candes. He will be speaking about the famous Netflix problem, of inferring preference for unrated items using probability theory.

Professor Alexander Mogilner was featured on UC Davis' Spotlight, a monthly article highlighting interesting and important people and events on campus. The article talks about Mogilner's approach to his research and his adventures in life.

Professor Tim Lewis has been elected as Program Director for SIAG Life Sciences. The Life Sciences activity group brings together researchers who seek to develop and apply mathematical and computational methods in all areas of the life sciences.

The UC Davis Mathematics Department now has a Facebook group page. Join to stay up to date on department news and events.

Professor Nachtergaele has been elected Vice-President of the International Association of Mathematical Physics for 2009-2011. IAMP aims to promote international cooperation in mathematical physics.

UC Davis and the Hellman Family Foundation have awarded Robert Guy as part of the five year Hellman Fellows Program. Professor Guy is being recognized both as an up-and-coming professor and for his compelling research proposal, "Computational Modeling of Intracellular Flow During Amoebid Movement."

Deanna Needell won the UC Davis & Humanities Graduate Research Award for 2008. She has been granted this award an astounding four times for the past four years.

The UC Davis Community Service Office awarded graduate students Mohamed Omar, David Sivakoff, Eva Strawbridge and Rohit Thomas for their community service efforts for the 2007-08 academic year. PhD candidate Brandy Wiegers was recognized as giving the most outstanding community service among all grads at UC Davis. The Explore Math and Math Modeling Experience groups were also honored for their efforts.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities nominated Prof Craig Tracy for the Batsheva de Rothschild Fellowship. This fellowship will cover expenses as he participates in the March 2009 Rothschild Workshop and visits several Israeli academic institutions in the spring of 2009.

Eva Strawbridge, a graduate student in Applied Mathematics, has been selected as the 2008 recipient of the MPS Dean's Graduate Student Prize in the College of Letters and Science.

Professor Alexander Mogilner accepted an invitation by the National Institutes of Health to serve as chair of the Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems Study Section, which does peer review for the Center for Scientific Review. Mogilner was selected due to the quality of his research, publications, achievements and honors in mathematical biology and biophysics.

Three more of our students have won the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award. This year's honors go to Diana Webb, Patrick Dragon and Eva Strawbridge. They are recognized by their students as being exemplary teachers.

Professor Craig Tracy has been named to an Aisenstadt Chair at CRM, University of Montreal for 2008-2009.

Brandy Wiegers has received the Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity and Community for 2007-2008. Brandy is the third graduate student in our Department to be honored with this award. Momar Dieng and Yvonne Lai were previous recipients