Rice and Harvard Honored as "Mathematics Programs That Make a Difference"

April 7, 2010 

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is honoring two programs that do an outstanding job of bringing more individuals from underrepresented minority groups into the mathematical sciences.  The "Mathematics Programs That Make a Difference" award highlights two programs each year that have developed successful, replicable methods for increasing participation of these groups in the field.

This year's selection includes the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) at Rice University and the Summer Program in Quantitative Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Susan Loepp (Williams College) was chair of the selection committee. In an AMS press release she said, "Both of the programs recognized this year have had remarkable success in attracting and successfully mentoring underrepresented minorities." She continued, "The individual guidance and personal connections each program provides for their students have proved to be a key part of their extraordinary track records."

In the past 25 years, CAAM has produced 34 PhDs from underrepresented minority groups and 43 female PhDs, making them one of the most successful departments in the nation in mentoring and producing mathematical science doctorates drawn from these groups.

The department's twelve faculty members, under the leadership of Richard Tapia, are involved in cutting-edge research in inverse problems, discrete and continuous optimization, computational neuroscience, partial differential equations (PDE), PDE constrained optimization, and large-scale numerical linear algebra.

According to the AMS press release, "This department's unwavering commitment to students through individual guidance and support has created an exceptionally welcoming community in which students excel."

The Summer Program in Quantitative Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health is a four-week program that pairs introductory courses in biostatistics and statistical computing with lectures on epidemiology, health and social behavior, and current research in biostatistics.

Students also engage in small group research projects that are based on ongoing studies by Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School scientists. 12 minority students have participated in the program, which began admitting students in 1994.

Read the citations and descriptions of the "Programs That Make a Difference" at http://www.ams.org/programs/diversity/citation2010.

Source: AMS Press Release (April 1, 2010).