It has been an eventful spring semester for the math community, and it is my privilege to share some of the highlights with you. Our graduate students received college-level awards, our faculty earned national recognition, and we welcomed new faculty members.

Our graduate program was once again ranked among the nation's best, a testament to our faculty's commitment to student success and innovation. This dedication to our students and forward-thinking approach defines our culture and propels us forward. It is no surprise that our faculty received the highest number of accolades from graduating students last year.

I wish you all a restful, enjoyable, and energizing summer!

Maria Emelianenko

I am honored to serve as ACTE in the Department of Mathematics. I am committed to supporting inclusive, high-quality teaching practices, and fostering an environment where all students can thrive. My priorities include facilitating instructional support, promoting equitable access to learning opportunities, and collaborating with faculty to enhance the overall student experience.

I look forward to working closely with colleagues and students to build on the department’s strengths, advance equity-focused initiatives, and continue creating a supportive and engaging academic community.

In April, George Mason welcomed 86 students from 20 institutions across the DMV region for the Fourth Annual Mason Calculus Olympiad, hosted by the Department of Mathematical Sciences and CMAI as well as a new corporate sponsor, Cengage. Students competed in both individual and team rounds, tackling challenging calculus problems designed by George Mason faculty. Professor Sean Lawton gave the interactive keynote address: "Your Teachers are Lying to You"

“3D Printing of Invariant Manifolds in Dynamical Systems” by Patrick Bishop, Summer Chenoweth, Emmanuel Fleurantin, Alonso Ogueda, Evelyn Sander, and Julia Seay was featured on the cover of the January issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, a leading journal for professional mathematicians. The authors present a framework for designing printable manifolds, with code and explanations for creating three-dimensional representations. Read full article. 

This year’s Noyce scholars and learning assistants traveled with Mathematical Sciences Senior Instructor and LA coordinator Mike Coleson to the 2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Washington, D.C., a conference featuring presentations, workshops, and expositions. George Mason faculty served as session leaders and speakers, while undergraduate learning assistants and graduate students presented posters to broader professional audiences. Mike has been appointed department GTA coordinator beginning Fall 2026.

The Northern Virginia Regional Science & Engineering Fair (NVSE Fair), co-organized by GMU professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer, was at George Mason University on Saturday, April 11, 2026. This annual event is organized in collaboration with Pinnacle Academy to provide a large-scale venue for elementary and middle school students to showcase STEM projects.

Professor Harbir Antil delivered the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Plenary lecture at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in January 2026—the world's largest annual gathering of mathematicians. This distinguished honor places Professor Antil among leading mathematical scientists recognized for groundbreaking contributions to the field.

Professor Antil's lecture, "Digital Twins, Generative AI, and Beyond: A PDE-Constrained Optimization Perspective," showcased cutting-edge research at the intersection of mathematical optimization, artificial intelligence, and digital twin technology. 

Watch the video. 

Sixteen faculty members from the Department of Mathematical Sciences were honored through George Mason University's tenth annual Thank-A-Teacher Program, representing nearly 20% of the 82 College of Science faculty recognized this year.The program, led by the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, gives students an opportunity to express gratitude to faculty who have inspired, guided, and supported them throughout their academic journey. The recognition reflects the department's commitment to excellence in teaching and creating supportive learning environments where students feel capable, inspired, and empowered to succeed in mathematics.

The Mathematical Sciences awardees are: Harrison Bray, Timothee Bryan, Gabriela Bulancea, Scott Carson, Michael Coleson, Karen Crossin, Aman D'Souza, Neil Epstein, Stephanie Gaffney, Ermias Kassaye, Anton Lukyanenko, Haja Razafinjatovo, Rosemberg Toala-Enriquez, Thomas Wanner, Jingya Yan, and Pamela Yusko.

Student messages highlighted the profound impact these educators have made. A small sampling of excerpts:

 "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TEACHING MATH!!! I don't think I've ever enjoyed math this much in my entire life. I may have struggled a little, but the struggle was worth it at the end of the day! Thank you for bringing back the joy in math."

"Thank you so much for this semester! You have been a very understanding professor and I felt very comfortable being able to talk to you and come to office hours with questions. You motivated me and checked in on me throughout the semester and helped me truly understand certain concepts."

"I just want to take the time to sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for being one of the most impactful professors I’ve ever had not just in math, but in my entire educational journey. I can honestly say that you are one of the best math professors I’ve ever experienced, and I feel incredibly grateful to have had the chance to learn from you."

" I wanted to express my sincerest gratitude for all you do! Your teaching approach and organization of the course made it easier for me to grasp the different concepts and formulas we learned in class."

"Your patience and passion for what you do have inspired me, and I hope to emulate your hard work as I move on into my field of teaching."

"Thank you for being a knowledgeable and engaging professor. Your passion for the subject is contagious, and it has truly enhanced my learning experience."

George Mason’s mathematics program delivered one of its strongest performances, ranking 93 nationally and 63 among public universities. In a region dense with top institutions, George Mason placed fifth in the DMV, demonstrating its competitiveness in both pure and applied mathematics.

Most notably, mathematics ranked third in Virginia, behind only the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, and is one of just four universities in the Commonwealth to earn national recognition in this category. The ranking highlights the department’s excellence in data science, computational mathematics, and interdisciplinary applications that align closely with workforce demand.

"Our graduate program principles are simple: we adapt to the rapidly changing world while being true to the time-proven mathematical foundations," explained Department of Mathematical Sciences Chair Maria Emelianenko. "With competitive recruitment packages, advanced pedagogical training, structured peer mentoring, and a wide and varied range of advanced curricula from computer-assisted proofs and mathematical modeling to symplectic geometry and analysis, our program offers great value in one of the most vibrant technological areas of the country," she said.

The mathematics PhD program at George Mason is unique in many ways. Having undergone major changes in the last few years, it is designed to look forward, preparing students for a variety of careers within industry, national labs, and academia. George Mason mathematical sciences alumni serve as department chairs and professors at top national institutions, as well as chief data officers at major companies.

How does the George Mason mathematics graduate program create such robust professional pathways?

"We partner with local industry through the Industrial Immersion Program, giving students a chance to apply their analytical and computational skills through experiential learning, while also earning internship credits," Emelianenko said. "We deeply care about our students, and they never cease to impress."

Exciting news! Four math graduate students have been selected to attend 

Anthony Pizzimenti - Percolation and lattice models of statistical physics (Columbia University)

Nathaniel Fink-Humes - SLMath-Oxford-OIST School: Analysis of Partial Differential Equations (Okinawa, Japan)

Allison Kohne - Singularities in commutative algebra through cohomological methods (SLMath)

Morgan Shuman - Random growth models, phase separation and Hamilton-Jacobi PDE (UC Berkeley)

Allison Kohne
Excellence in Teaching 2026
This award recognizes one College of Science graduate student who demonstrates excellence in supporting teaching in the college. 

Shrunal Pothagoni
Excellence in Research 2026
This award recognizes one College of Science graduate student who demonstrates scholarly and research excellence.

First-year PhD student Nicole Savir's piece, “Turtles All the Way Down,” was accepted into the juried 2026 Joint Mathematical Meeting (JMM) art show. The work references Bertrand Russell’s “turtles all the way down” anecdote and uses adapted recursive OpenSCAD code by Mathematical Sciences Professor Evelyn Sander to generate an iterated turtle structure approaching infinite depth. Read full article. 

Undergraduate student Matthew Melendez-Jimenez as well as PhD Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant Anthony Pizzimenti served on the Dean's Student Advisory Council this year. This advisory board brings together a select group of undergraduate and graduate students to provide meaningful input on college-wide initiatives, policies, and priorities. Their voices and perspectives help ensure that the College of Science remains a welcoming, forward-thinking, and academically rigorous environment. 

Jessica Masterson received a prestigious Provost's Dissertation Completion Grant for Fall 2026, a competitive award for doctoral students in their final dissertation semester. The grant allows recipients to focus full-time on research and writing, improving the quality of their dissertations and helping them finish their degrees more quickly.

This year has been marked by exceptional achievements across our graduate student community, highlighting excellence in teaching, research, and professional engagement. Students earned prestigious awards, including teaching and research honors, secured competitive internships, and advanced impactful scholarship with numerous publications and works in progress. Many presented at national and international conferences, delivered invited talks, and participated in specialized summer programs around the world. Their work spans diverse areas—from topology and algebra to biomathematics and computational modeling—while also fostering leadership and outreach through student organizations and collaborative initiatives. Together, these accomplishments reflect a vibrant, innovative, and highly accomplished graduate community.

Mathematical Sciences Professor Evelyn Sander and Max Planck Institute's Charles Daly (BS Math) met up at the week-long Institute Henri Poincaré in Paris, participating in the workshop “Bridging Visualization and Understanding in Geometry and Topology,” part of the semester program “Illustration as a Mathematical Research Technique.”

Cigole Thomas, PhD Algebraic Geometry '22 recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado State University (2022–2025) focusing on research at the intersection of algebraic geometry, number theory, and dynamics, along with contributions to mathematics education. This past fall, she joined Bates College as a tenure-track assistant professor, where she now lives with her husband and daughter.

Sayomi Kamimoto, PhD in Applied Mathematics ’20, is an assistant professor at Howard University. Her research focuses on applied bifurcation theory, nonlinear dynamical systems, swarming, and mathematical biology. She previously completed an NRC postdoctoral appointment at the Naval Research Laboratory and a postdoctoral position at New York University. While at George Mason, she received numerous honors, including the Clark Award at the IIP Fellowship. This spring she spoke at George Mason's Applied and Computational Mathematics seminar with a talk entitled: "Swarming to Herding: Geometry of Collective Organization."

Hebah Alhwaitiy (Advisor: Flavia Colonna)
Mazen Althobaiti (Advisor: Dan Anderson and Rayanne Luke)
John Kent (Advisor Geir Agnarsson)
Jessica Masterson (Advisor: Dan Anderson)
Alonso Ogueda Oliva (Advisor: Padhu Seshaiyer)
Guy Oldaker (Advisor: Maria Emelienenko)

Elizabeth Thompson graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Washington State University (WSU) in Spring 2026, where she studied topological data analysis and machine learning, particularly in the context of predicting perceptions of police use of force. Her work earned her 2nd place at the WSU 3-minute thesis (3MT) competition. Welcome, Elizabeth!

2026 Mason Math Odyssey (MMO) Camp planning and registration is in full swing. Hosted at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus, Mason Summer Day Camps offer hands-on STEM enrichment for K–12 students through interactive, age-appropriate activities in math, engineering, and scientific thinking. Students engage in collaborative problem-solving and creative challenges led by faculty and graduate students in a supportive learning environment.

Camp sessions include: Week of July 13–17 for rising 6th–7th graders, and Week of July 20–24 for rising 8th–9th graders. Programs are designed to build curiosity, collaboration, and critical thinking while making STEM concepts engaging and accessible beyond the standard school curriculum. Mason families receive a 50% discount, so please spread the word! A few seats still remaining. 

This year, in addition to the MEGL and MMO activities, Math community has been engaged in the development of the STEM Ambassador program aimed at building partnerships with local K-12 schools and energizing student community on campus. More news to come!