Two CCU math students win prestigious certificates

Two Coastal Carolina University students recently placed in the top 15 percent of student competitors at the Joint Mathematics Meeting (JMM) in Atlanta, Ga., a combined gathering of the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society featuring undergraduate and graduate student competitions. Shaquille Dixon and Rachael Wagner were awarded winner’s certificates from the Mathematical Association of America.

CCU students Dalton Watts, Tyler Sullivan and Dominique Forbes also participated in the Undergraduate Poster Session with about 500 other students from across the U.S. All five students will present their posters and research at the MAA Southeastern Section Meeting this March at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

Dixon, a junior mathematics major from Greenville, S.C., presented a poster on “Space Filling Curves.” Dixon’s project was inspired by a YouTube video that caused him to think about how to change an image into an audible signal for the visually impaired. He was advised by Andrew Incognito, associate professor of mathematics at CCU.

Wagner, a senior mathematics major from Great Falls, Va., researched functions that describe the rate at which people arrive in the emergency room at the Conway Medical Center. Her poster was titled “Modeling Emergency Department Arrivals using Non-Homogeneous Poisson Processes.” This research is aimed at helping hospitals to efficiently allocate resources. Wagner was advised by Lindsey Bell, associate professor of statistics at CCU.

JMM is the largest annual academic mathematics meeting in the world and offers a variety of sessions that promote undergraduate research. To learn more about JMM, visit http://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/jmm.

To learn more about CCU’s math program, visit www.coastal.edu/math.