Mathematics, Applied

Our faculty and students have a strong tradition of collaborative research. Below are just a few examples of what students have been up to:

A Random Walk with the Dead
By Emily Deborde

The Walking Dead is a television show broadcast on the AMC Network that depicts the “imminent” zombie apocalypse. Data was collected from each episode of the show. The variables observed were the number of zombies (walkers) killed, the episode rating, and the number of viewers for each episode over the first four seasons, or 51 episodes. Time series plots were constructed for each of these variables, where the time progresses by episode. These time series plots were then evaluated to find if they exhibited stationary or non-stationary characteristics. Based on these characteristics, forecasting models were made to predict data for the fifth season of the show. View full research poster »

Voronoi Diagrams: Fortune’s Algorithm
By Damien Wright

Imagine Gotham City in which Batman and Robin parted ways and decided to fight crime separately. If we assume that Batman has more times the ability to protect Gotham than Robin (aka Nightwing) does, we can use Weighted Voronoi Diagrams to partition the city in a way that will create 2 distinct regions in which Batman and Robin will be responsible for protecting. View full research poster »

• Students have the opportunity to align their degree with their career goals by choosing specialized electives, allowing them to be better prepared for jobs in business, industry, education, or other fields.
  
• All students take a capstone course in which they are paired with a faculty member to tackle a mathematical research project. Past students have presented their work in the form of talks and posters at both regional and national conferences.
  
• Employment opportunities are available for students to serve as graders for introductory courses or tutors in the Mathematics Learning Center – which serves as valuable experience for students who are interested in teaching.
  
• Students participate in extracurricular activities like competing in Math Jeopardy, preparing for the Putnam math contest, and joining the Pi Mu Epsilon mathematics honor society.

A degree in mathematics opens up many exciting job opportunities in finance, industry, government, actuarial science, technology and education. Employers value a math major's attention to detail, the ability to abstract and their perspective to problem-solving.

Mathematics is frequently ranked as one of the top 10 highest earning college degrees, and careers in mathematics often dominate the top of career satisfaction studies. Mathematics majors are well-suited for graduate study and/or for careers as teachers, engineers, analysts, actuaries, statisticians, technical writers, programmers, cryptanalysts, bankers, underwriters, cost estimators and many others. A business or science major that minors in mathematics or statistics will have a competitive advantage in the job market and/or on graduate school applications.

Students have the opportunity to study topics that are fundamental to the discipline, such as analysis, algebra, geometry, and topology. Students can also focus on more computational and applied topics such as statistics, differential equations, numerical analysis, financial mathematics and cryptography.