YSU students win awards at MathFest event

Staff report

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Youngstown State University students Mario Sracic of Hermitage, Pa., and Sepideh Khavari of Howland won awards at the annual summer meeting of the Mathematical Association of America and Pi Mu Epsilon.

The meeting, commonly known as MathFest, was in Lexington, Ky., earlier this month. In all, nine undergraduate students in the YSU Department of Mathematics and Statistics attended the event and gave presentations.

Over the past 10 years, YSU students have won, on average, more than three awards annually at MathFest, more than any other university or college.

Sracic’s presentation on Cryptology and Quantum Computing won an award for excellence in exposition and research sponsored by the American Mathematical Society and the American Statistical Association.

Khavari’s presentation titled “Time-to-Peak Response in Biological Systems” won the Janet L. Anderson Award for outstanding exposition and research in mathematical and computational biology sponsored by the MAA Special Interest Group in Mathematical Biology.

Also making presentations were Michael Coates of Niles; Jason Cooke of Youngstown; Daniel Catello of Youngstown; Tara Sansom of Sandy Lake, Pa.; Bradley Slabe of Youngstown; Sarah Ritchey of Sharon, Pa.; and Matt Alexander of Espyville, Pa.

“The real value of participating in this and other conferences is to expose our students to the variety of mathematics that occurs throughout society and to encourage interactions with students and faculty from other Universities,” said George Yates, associate professor of Mathematics and Statistics.

“Another goal is to excite students about mathematics and involve them in professional activities that lead to a lifetime of learning.”

Faculty attending the MathFest event included Yates, Doug Faires, Nathan Ritchey, Angela Spalsbury and Tom Wakefield.

Faculty who advised students on their projects include Ritchey, Yates, Tom Smotzer, Eric Wingler and David Pollack.