16 May 2012 — The National Blackwell-Tapia Committee recently announced that Professor Ricardo Cortez of the Mathematics Department at Tulane University was awarded the 2012 Blackwell-Tapia Prize. The prize recognizes a mathematical scientist who has contributed significantly to research in his or her field of expertise and who has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from underrepresented minority groups or has contributed in other significant ways to addressing the problem of the underrepresentation of minorities in mathematics. Dr. Cortez is internationally regarded as a leading researcher in fluid dynamics and mathematical modeling. He has also been a leader in undergraduate mentoring and the development of training opportunities for underrepresented minority students in the mathematical sciences. Dr. Cortez will be the guest of honor at the Seventh Blackwell-Tapia Conference at ICERM on November 9–10, 2012; Read the full announcement here.

Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano

15 May 2012 — Artists, biologists, humanists, engineers, social scientists . . . faculty across disciplines from Brown University, the Marine Biology Laboratory, Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Rhode Island will gather on May 18^th at the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) for a “Day of Data.” Click here for more details.

14 May 2012 — PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- From discerning causes of diabetes to discovering how nano and nature interact, researchers supported by the National Science Foundation are expanding the frontiers of knowledge and inspiring the game-changing technologies of tomorrow. ICERM was among the researchers and scientists at the 18th Annual Exhibition and Reception hosted by the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF). Click here for more details.

04 May 2012 — Industrial Design Critic Amy Leidtke has created several STEM to STEAM mini-institutes for SmART Schools, a research-based K–12 reform initiative that fuses rigorous core academics with dance, theater, music and visual arts. Her Seeing and Making Mathematical Paper Structures workshop was developed with funding from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. During the program she used the space at ICERM to work with area math teachers. “Visualizing polyhedra is actually fun, and makes it possible . . . to make sense of spatial and structural relationships in our world,” she says, adding that “no one will go away without making his or her own mathematical toy, [or without] renewed insight on how to ignite the curiosity in the minds of students.”  Click here for more details.

SmART Schools Mini-Institute participants

collaborate to draw a variety of intersecting

three-dimensional representations of Archimedes’

platonic solids.

03 May 2012 — The eight NSF Mathematical Sciences Institutes and NIMBioS are pleased to offer three concurrent sessions immediately preceding the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) annual meeting, Oct. 11-14, 2012, in Seattle, WA. The sessions – one for graduate students and recent PhDs, and two for undergraduate students – aim to invigorate the research careers of minority mathematicians and mathematics faculty at minority-serving institutions. The sessions begin with lunch on Oct. 10 and end at 12:30 p.m. prior to the SACNAS conference lunch on Oct. 11. Application deadline: July 1, 2012. For more information and the online application, visit http://www.nimbios.org/education/modern_math_ws

24 April 2012 —  With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), David Gracias from Johns Hopkins and Govind Menon, a mathematician at Brown University and an ICERM Associate Director, are developing self-assembling 3-D micro- and nanostructures that can be used in a number of applications, including medicine. Click here for more information.