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Karen Saxe
Over the summer, I have assumed my new role as department chair. I’ve worked at Macalester since 1991, after undergraduate studies at Bard College in New York and my PhD at the University of Oregon. My PhD work is in operator theory, a branch of functional analysis. I have written a number of papers in this area, and have written a textbook on Beginning Functional Analysis. I currently serve on the editorial board of the Mathematical Association of America's Math Horizons, and have just agreed to serve on the planning committee for the MAA’s centennial celebration, in 2015. I am a North American Regional Representative to The Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program.
I teach many different courses in the department, all in math and statistics. Last year I taught a few elementary statistics classes, and a first-year course on game theory. This fall I will teach applied calculus. In the last few months I have been honored to have been chosen as the recipient of two major teaching awards – I was awarded Macalester's Excellence in Teaching Award as well as the 2007 Teaching Award of the North Central Section of the Mathematical Association of America for excellence in college or university teaching. I love teaching at Macalester, and am able to be successful because I have wonderful students to teach and am surrounded by stimulating and supportive colleagues.
On the personal side, I am married to Peter Webb, also a mathematician, and we have three children: Julian (currently 13), and twins Alexander and Zoë (currently 12). We love to travel, and recent international trips include England, Peru, Bolivia, France, Turkey, Netherlands, and Italy. We lived in Préverenges, Switzerland from January 2005 until July 2005, and will be on sabbatical again during spring 2008. This time we will live in Berkeley, where I will be visiting the math department at the University of California at Berkeley.
I’m looking forward to chairing the department. This year we welcome two new faculty to the department – Andrew Beveridge and Chad Topaz – and will be doing a search to hire a computer scientist to replace Dick Molnar when he retires from teaching at the end of this academic year. We’ve already got a line-up of exciting talks, and new courses are being offered. Welcome back, students!
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A New Way to Major in Math!The mathematics major has been redesigned and now offers two paths to a major -- an updated, traditional path in Mathematics,and a new path in Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Congratulations to the recipients of the 2008 student awards:The Ezra Camp Award – Math: Sarah Sutter Competition Prizes - Sam Handler and Stiliyana Stamenova Capstone Day - Wednesday, April 23, 2008Olaf Hall-Holt to speak on Thursday, April 24, 2008, 4:30pm - OLRI 250Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, St. Olaf College Title: A Pretty Problem in PartitionsAbstract: Almost one century ago, the famous mathematician Ramanujan discovered three unexpected patterns in the sequence of partition numbers. The `Ramanujan congruences' led to extensive developments in the field of integer partitions. About a year ago, George Andrews, an expert in this area, discovered some similar patterns in a related sequence. The race is on to discover new congruences, as they appear to be related to many areas of mathematics (and even quantum physics). This fall, the combinatorialist Tina Garrett posed a pretty problem in partitions to an algorithms class at St. Olaf. She asked if there was a congruence mod 11 for the smallest part statistic. The class members have now made some exciting discoveries. This talk will explain their work and pose brand new open problems. Congratulations, Stella!
Stiliyana Stamenova, a junior double-majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics, has won a Google 2008 Anita Borg Scholarship, and a Microsoft Women's Scholarship, both extremely competitive programs that recognize outstanding students majoring in computer science at U.S. colleges and Universities. As a part of the second scholarship, she will have an internship at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington this summer. 68th Annual Putnam Competition in MathematicsThe results are in from the 68th Annual Putnam Competition in Mathematics. There were 3753 contestants from 516 institutions in the US and Canada who participated in the 6-hour math contest on December 1, 2007. This is a very challenging contest. The most common score is 0 (out of 120) and a score of 10 puts you in the top third. Seven Macalester students participated, and they should all be congratulated: Below are the top Macalester scores:
Konhauser Problemfest Results, Feb 23, 2008, Held at Macalester College13 teams from Carleton, St Olaf, Gustavus, St Thomas, Macalester 1. Gustavus Adolphus College 99 pts; Chenyu Yang, Mark Meyers, Erick Knight Invisible Handshake, by Helaman Ferguson installed Feb 20, 2008. Read more about the sculpture at Invisible Handshake. (Photo Credit: Stan Wagon). Also see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CostaMinimalSurface.html
See the MAA Online article on Geometry in the Snowfeaturing Professor Stan Wagon. http://www.maa.org/news/013008snow.html A video showing the construction of snow sculptures is available at http://www.vimeo.com/651346/l:transcoded_email
Congrats to all the team members, and especially to the top team, who were one problem away from victory.Results of the 2007 North Central Section of the Math. Assoc. of America Math Contest 1. 85 points Gustavus Adolphus College 26. 43 Macalester College (Matthew Kusner, Jacob Bond, Paul Burns) 53 teams took part from 25 institutions Some perspective and stats: 1. The Macalester results for the past five years (2003-2007) at this event have been: second, first, first, first, second 2. Going back to the start in 1997, there were in addition two more firsts and a third for Mac. 3. This is Gustavus's first appearance on the podium. They were the only team to solve #10. Restricted to problems 1-8, Mac had the highest score (77). 4. The top score of 85 was the lowest winning score in the event's history.
Congratulations to the Mac teams!The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) held the regional contests of International Collegiate Programming Contest this past Saturday, Nov. 3rd. Macalester teams competed with hundreds of other contestants on slightly over 200 registered teams in the North Central Region's Programming Contest, which included teams from the upper Midwest and Canada. Macalester competed at a contest site at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa this year, along with teams from Gustavus Adolphus College and Luther College. At this site representing liberal arts colleges in our area, Macalester's two official teams came out on top (a third unofficial Macalester team also competed). The two official team members and their place in the entire North Central Region are: Macalester team 'Blue' finished 19th: David Brown, Wes Hart, Henrik Hakonsen Macalester team 'Orange' finished 22nd: Stella Stamanova, Chris Dragga, Sam Handler Macalester's unofficial team was not scored: Casey Battaglino, Ernesto Nunes, Kayton Parekh Meet our newly hired facultySeen at the September 11 department picnic
Check the Department Calendar regularly!
Read manuscripts from past Honors Projects
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