I am pleased to address you on behalf of the Department of Mathematics. In this letter I will report on the developments in the Department as well as tell you about our plans for 2024. I hope that you will enjoy this Newsletter where we will share with you some of the achievements of our students and faculty.

The Department continues working on updating our curriculum in order to prepare our students for the evolving environment in academia and industry. We successfully designed the following certificates which will be available for enrollment in Fall 2024:

There are several other significant projects that the department is working on, including a new undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics. I would like to use this opportunity to thank faculty members involved in the design of the new programs for their tremendous work and commitment and, most of all, their strategic vision.

From climate change to systemic injustices, the need for multidisciplinary problem-solving skills has never been greater. The book entitled "Modern Math Tasks to Provoke Transformational Thinking, Grades 9-12,” edited by Professors Dana Cox and Suzanne Harper, was published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in October, 2023.

Drs. Harper and Cox worked with numerous authors to publish a set of innovative tasks for young adults that bridge the gap between traditional siloed education and the real-world problems we encounter daily. By emphasizing mathematical modeling, data analysis, and cross-disciplinary thinking, these tasks empower students to tackle complex issues and become global citizens ready to shape a brighter future.

This book features many K-12 teachers among it’s authors including one of our notable alumni, Leah Simon. Their chapter on developing design literacy to support a culture of mathematical modeling was inspired, in part, by Leah’s extensive knowledge of technology and design and includes tasks she developed and field tested with local students in southwestern Ohio.

A book written by Professor Paul Larson, a leading set theorist, entitled “Extensions of Axiom of Determinacy," was published this fall by the American Mathematical Society in its prestigious university lecture series. The book provides an expository account of acclaimed work on strong forms of the Axioms of Determinacy, which asserts the existence of winning strategies in infinitely long games.

While the Axiom of Determinacy contradicts the Axiom of Choice, Choice is consistent with the assumption that determinacy holds in certain inner models of the set theoretic universe, corresponding roughly to the class of sets with suitably simple definitions. The study of models of determinacy has been a central topic in set theory for over 50 years. Deep connections between determinacy and other areas of mathematics are currently being explored, and many basic questions remain open, especially regarding possible implications between various forms of determinacy. The book begins by giving a updated presentation of fundamental foundational work in the area, before presenting a series of major results, primarily due to W. Hugh Woodin, whose proofs appear in print for the first time in this book. There is much more to explore, and Dr. Larson plans to start work soon on a sequel.

In mid-October, twelve members from the Miami University Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MUCTM) traveled to Sandusky, OH, to attend the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM) conference. The primary goal of the annual OCTM conference is to captivate, inspire, and empower mathematics educators, offering time and space for professional growth.

Over the two-day conference, our students engaged in sessions delving into mathematics concepts, strategies, and techniques shared by some of the field's most adept educators. The array of presentations spanned all grade levels, mathematics content strands, and included discussions about research and policy issues. In addition to attending sessions, the MUCTM students were able to meet teacher leaders and other educators to begin building their own professional network.

The OCTM conference served as an invaluable platform for our students, enabling them to fully immerse themselves in the dynamic and ever-evolving landscape of mathematics education. We are thankful for the MUCTM #MoveInMiami funds designated for professional development to pay for all of the students’ conference expenses!

By the end of next summer, the Mathematics Department will leave its longtime home of Bachelor Hall after occupying it for over three decades to eventually settle in Upham Hall. Bachelor Hall is set to be renovated with a plan to fill in the courtyard or alter it in some way.

One piece of history that will be lost in this move is the Penrose tiling found in the courtyard of Bachelor Hall. This artwork traces its roots to a talk given by John Conway at the annual Mathematics and Statistics Conference in 1976. Conway, who passed away in 2020, was an esteemed mathematician who made contributions to group theory, knot theory, number theory, and game theory, among other areas. His talk spurred interest in the tiling, and plans were made to have it installed in the courtyard during the construction of Bachelor Hall in 1979.

The story behind the installation of these gorgeous mathematically shaped tiles was remarkable and was accounted for by articles of the main persons behind the idea, Math professor emeritus Milton Cox (the main mastermind) and former Math department chair professor emeritus David Kullman.

Professors Cox and Kullman have kindly provided their account on the mathematics and the history behind the tiling.

When I arrived at Miami in 2011, I had no intention of studying Math. I was a music major, focused on piano and music technology, which required at least one semester in calculus to pass as a liberal arts requirement. A gentle nudge from Dr. Keeler convinced me to continue with "just one more" math class, and after a mind-expanding introduction to the history of mathematics I decided to switch to a full major.

At this point I discovered how exceptional the strength of Miami's undergraduate teaching is among American universities: faculty took the time to understand me and encourage the pursuit of mathematics for its own sake, which put my career on track and forced me to solve problems in new ways. For that, I'm eternally grateful.

I bounced between a couple start-ups after finishing my M.A. in 2017, and now work as a senior machine learning engineer at CVS Health / Aetna. Most recently we've been working on applications using retrieval-augmented large language models to help our representatives navigate the hundreds of thousands of unstructured documents about Aetna and its health insurance products. LLMs are enabling us to quickly determine the best product fit for our customers, and as anyone working in healthcare can tell you, even just making sense of a health insurance "product" is no easy feat. These recent advances in AI are making the process a whole heck of a lot easier for everyone.

If I was to give my undergraduate (or even graduate!) self some advice before going into the industry, it would be to not discount the strength, flexibility, and adaptability that you gain from the pursuit of pure math. Sure, I didn't know as much of the trendy tech stuff when I first got into the industry, but those things come and go.

What sticks forever is the confidence to look at any problem and say "it might take a while, but I will solve this." The rigor of mathematics forces you to communicate clearly and accurately, along with the ability to break down complex, abstract situations into components you know how to tackle. This process fits into any industry: marketing, data science, fashion, logistics, art, you name it.

Another piece of advice is that it would be to get a foundation in web technologies. Yes, it's not math math, but once you're in a field that uses math, you're probably going to be presenting it or deploying it through a web browser, and a well-crafted presentation is a direct multiplier to the value of that work. If I had stepped into my first data science role with some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a bit of Python under my belt, it would have considerably strengthened my ability to distribute and present the mathematics behind my analyses.