The much awaited 7th Davis Mathematics Conference will held on Thursday January 12th from 9:30 AM-3:15PM in MSB 1147. The conference showcases the range of research in the Davis Mathematics Department, with the aim to strengthen intra- and inter-departmental connections in the dynamic UCD research community. Both professors and graduate students will present their cutting-edge mathematics in a series of 5 sessions organized by topic:

• Geometry & Topology,
• Analysis & Mathematical Physics,
• Statistics & Optimization,
• Mathematical Biology,
• Algebra & Discrete Mathematics.

There will be a light breakfast and lunch for all who register.

We encourage every Aggie mathematician and scientist to attend, including graduate students, researchers, and professors. First years and second year grads in particular, we strongly encourage you to attend. This is a good opportunity to scope out future avenues of research.

The DMC 2017 Organizers: Robert Bassett, Kirill Paramonov, Dmitry Shemetov

Read about new faculty, learn about current research, and keep up with the news of the Department.

Our faculty member Naoki Saito this week received two awards from The Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (JSIAM). His paper "Hierarchical graph Laplacian eigen transforms", coauthored with Jeff Irion, published in JSIAM Letters in 2014, received the 2016 JSIAM Letters Best Paper Award; and he received the 2016 Bulletin of JSIAM Best Author Award for his 2015 Bulletin of JSIAM paper "Applied harmonic analysis on graphs and networks".

Our Department of Mathematics faculty member Eugene Gorskiy was selected as one of 12 UC Davis Assistant Professors to receive the 2016 Hellman Fellowship. The goal of the fellowship is "to promote the scholarly growth of faculty members at the Assistant Professor rank who exhibit the potential for great academic distinction, and for whom Hellman funding can significantly stimulate productivity in research and other creative scholarly activities." Congratulations Eugene! See the link below for the announcement of the 2016 Hellman Fellowship recipients.

The conference "Geometry, Topology and Complexity of Manifolds, and applications to Biology" will be held at UC Berkeley on May 20-22, 2016. The conference was organized to honor our faculty member Joel Hass on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Speakers will include well-known mathematicians and computer scientists, including Michael Freedman (recipient of the 1986 Fields Medal) and Ian Agol (recipient of the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics).

The Department of Mathematics and Department of Statistics will be holding a career panel on Tuesday, May 3rd 5:30-8PM in Mathematical Sciences Building 1147. Pizza will be provided. Please RSVP at the link below.

Mariel Vazquez, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, was announced as the recipient of the Blackwell-Tapia prize for 2016. As the award announcement explains, this prize is awarded every other year in honor of the legacy of David H. Blackwell and Richard A. Tapia, two distinguished mathematical scientists, and recognizes a mathematician who has contributed significantly to research in his or her field of expertise, and who has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from under-represented minority groups or has contributed in other significant ways to addressing the problem of the under-representation of minorities in math. The prize will be presented at the Ninth Blackwell-Tapia Conference, which will take place on Oct. 28-29, 2016 at the University of Knoxville, Tennessee. Congratulations, Mariel!

5 excellent lectures, Poster session for students, A math art exhibit. Details and online Registration at: http://sections.maa.org/golden/MeetingMAA-UCD.html

Register for lunch and refreshments. Questions deloera@math.ucdavis.edu

This is an introductory textbook designed for undergraduate mathematics majors with an emphasis on abstraction and in particular, the concept of proofs in the setting of linear algebra. The purpose of this book is to bridge the gap between the more conceptual and computational oriented undergraduate classes to the more abstract oriented classes. The book begins with systems of linear equations and complex numbers, then relates these to the abstract notion of linear maps on finite-dimensional vector spaces, and covers diagonalization, eigenspaces, determinants, and the Spectral Theorem. Each chapter concludes with both proof-writing and computational exercises.

Our faculty member Kevin Luli has been awarded the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his proposal, titled "Variational Problems on Arbitrary Sets". The CAREER awards are NSF's "most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research". Dr. Luli's award is for 5 years, and will provide funding to support miscellaneous research- and education-related activities. Congratulations, Kevin!