Mathematics
Lafayette Honors Students for Academic Excellence
Lafayette honored more than 120 students for academic excellence at the annual All-College Honors Convocation April 29 in Colton Chapel. Awards and prizes recognized outstanding academic success in all four of Lafayette’s academic divisions—engineering, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. This spring, 47 students will join Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most respected undergraduate [...]
Professor Jeff Liebner Uses Statistics to Expose Truth in the World
As a second-grader, Jeff Liebner wanted to teach first grade. When he was in third grade, he was ready to teach second. So it’s no surprise that the assistant professor of mathematics found his passion in teaching as an adult. “I had this idea that I had just been exposed to something great, and I [...]
Interdisciplinary Team Studies the Implications of Environmental Policymaking
By Michele Tallarita ’12 As an electrical and computer engineering major, Nick Orzol ’13 (Mercerville, N.J.) is used to toying with circuits, computers, and other electronics. For one of his projects this semester, however, his biggest concern is the wooden pallets used in shipping. Orzol is involved in interdisciplinary research that combines aspects of economics, [...]
Lafayette Places in Top 10 Percent in National Putnam Math Competition
Lafayette’s three-student team finished in the top 10 percent of schools participating nationally in the 2011-12 William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition. The College placed 41st out of 460 teams. Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and Caltech were this year’s top finishers. This is now the 10th year of the last 12 that a Lafayette team has [...]
The Music of the Cosmos: Michael Pinkard ’14 is an Aspiring Physicist and Jazz Musician
Here on Earth, Michael Pinkard ’14 (Puyallup, Wash.) is part student physicist and part jazz musician. With his tenor sax in hand, Pinkard—a Creative and Performing Arts scholar as well as Marquis Scholar—can be seen performing around campus with Lafayette’s Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo, delighting audiences with his mastery of music. But Pinkard is [...]
Opening New Avenues of Research: Lafayette’s REU Program is One of the Oldest in the Nation
For students whose idea of a fun summer involves working on unsolved problems in mathematics, Lafayette’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is just the ticket. This summer, the program will bring together eight students from Lafayette and other top colleges and universities around the United States for an intensive, eight-week research experience of working [...]
Students Help the Local Community Using Math and Economics
Nine students combined their math knowledge with economics to help others in the community this semester. Through Case Studies in Math Modeling, a course taught by Ethan Berkove, associate professor of mathematics, the students worked to help the Third Street Alliance women’s shelter in downtown Easton operate more efficiently. In early November, the class went [...]
Sharon Smith Donahue ’86 Plays Key Role in NASA’s New Space Telescope
By Tiffany Bentley When the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018 as the successor to Hubble, it will look deeper into space — beyond the reach of existing instruments — to see the earliest stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe. It will detect stars approximately 280 million years older than those seen [...]
John Hunt ’01 Makes Musical Debut on MTV’s The Challenge: Rivals
In today’s competitive music industry, a composer’s big break can occur in a matter of seconds after several disappointments. No one knows that better than John Hunt ’01 of South Orange, N.J., who made his musical debut during MTV’s The Challenge: Rivals most recent episode. Previously, two of Hunt’s original compositions were slated to be [...]
Grand Challenges: Yue Yuan ’12 and Felix Hutchison ’12 Build Electrical Models to Mimic the Human Brain
What if the breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s disease isn’t in a pill but in a computer? What if a paralysis victim could operate an electronic device just using the power of the mind? These are questions that Yue “Luna” Yuan ’12 (Wuhan, China), a mechanical engineering and policy studies dual major, and Felix Hutchison ’12 (Plainsboro, [...]
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