Letter from the Chair 2024
Alumni and friends of the Mathematics Department,
If you have a chance to swing by the department for a visit one of these afternoons, you’ll see a number of new faces. The loss of two mathematics education faculty (one to another position and one retirement) and the increasing demand for math classes as the university grows (and contemplates year-round operations) has led to a flurry of recruitments that shows no signs of abating. Allow me to make a few introductions here.
First, we were joined this past fall by Dr. Ciera Street. Dr. Street earned her Ph.D. in educational mathematics at the Colorado State University last spring under Dr. Jessica Ellis Hagman (herself a Cal Poly Master’s degree mathematics graduate in 2011). Dr. Street’s area of expertise is utilizing an intersection lens and critical theories to explore the ways marginalized students experience undergraduate mathematics at the intersection of social, historical, and political influences to promote more equitable mathematics education. Special thanks to Dr. Danielle Champney for successfully chairing the screening committee whose recommendation led to Dr. Street’s hire. The entire Cal Poly Mathematics Department and the Math Ed group, in particular, are so pleased that Dr. Street agreed to come and help us educate future math educators.
We also welcomed three new full-time lecturers to our ranks. The first, Dr. Michael Miller, earned his Ph.D. in 2011 at UC Santa Cruz studying representation theory of finite groups under Dr. Robert Boltjé. Dr. Miller worked as an adjunct instructor at Cabrillo College from 2008 to 2018 and as a math instructor at Prepa UPAEP Santiago, a private International Baccalaureate World School high school in Puebla Mexico from 2019 to 2021. In fall of 2021 he began teaching part-time for the Cal Poly Mathematics Department and we were happy that he agreed to a full-time position beginning this fall.
Second is Dr. Brian Tyrrell-Nic Dhonncha. Dr. Tyrrell-Nic Dhonncha earned his earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, Balliol College in 2022 under Dr. Jochen Koenigsmann, studying mathematical logic, number theory, and algebraic geometry. From 2022 to 2023 he served (simultaneously) as an EPSRC postdoctoral research associate at the Mathematical Institute, Oxford, as well as a stipendary lecturer in mathematics at Keble College, both part of the University of Oxford. Dr. Nic Dhonncha also began teaching for us in fall 2023.
The third new full-time lecturer is Dr. Robert Lopez. Dr. Lopez earned his Ph.D. from UC Riverside in 2021 under Dr. Amir Moradifam with a research area broadly focused on inverse problems, imaging, and partial differential equations. From fall 2021 to spring 2023 he held the position of full-time instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Whittier College, but we enticed him to join us at Cal Poly, also in fall 2023.
These are just the new faculty that have already arrived on campus. This past fall/winter we also searched for three addition positions, appointments to begin in fall 2024. Dr. Danielle Champney chaired the screening committee for a second math educator, and Ms. Saba Germani has accepted our offer. Germani holds a master’s degree from Cal Poly and will graduate with her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan this spring. Dr. Dylan Retsek chaired the screening committee to search for two new faculty members in pure mathematics (one position open due to a retirement and the other a new tenure line authorized by the provost). In fall 2024 we will be joined by Dr. Austin Christian, a 2021 UCLA graduate currently a postdoc at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Dr. Jackson Goodman, a 2020 University of Pennsylvania grad, who’s currently a visiting assistant professor at Colby College. Watch this space next year for complete introductions when these three arrive on campus.
We will also welcome two new Frost postdocs this. Last year Dr. Joyce Lin and Dr. Elena Dimitrova wrote a successful proposal and were awarded funding to support a postdoc position to study mathematical biology. In fall 2024, Dr. Alex Ruys de Perez, a 2021 Texas A&M grad currently serving as visiting assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, will arrive on campus to join the research group as well as teaching for the department. Dr. Patrick Orson was similarly awarded funding to support a position in topology, and Ms. Terrin Warren, who will earn her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Georgia this spring, will join his research team at the beginning of next academic year.
Finally, we expect to run an additional recruitment next year for a fall 2025 start. The applied math group will have their turn next fall/winter and search for an applied mathematician to fill an additional new tenure line authorized by the Provost’s Office.
So it’s been a busy, but very rewarding year (so far!). In the midst of all this hiring, the department has been maintaining the mathematical life and educational mission of the department, offering rich coursework, abundant student research opportunities, maintaining our own research programs, and supervising (and funding) a significant amount of student travel to mathematical research conferences. This latter activity, one of the many made possible by your generous support, constitutes an incredibly powerful and formative experience for budding mathematicians and we are immensely grateful for your generosity. Indeed, without you we couldn’t do many of the things — like maintaining the undergraduate study lounge, running Simple Group, bringing speakers to campus, and a myriad of other activities that make a math major at Cal Poly so rich. Thanks so much for your support!
Please keep in touch and let us know what you’ve been up to. We'd love to see you at the department office if you're ever on campus.
Sincerely,
Ben Richert, Chair, Mathematics Department
