Notes from the Chair

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an' men Gang aft agley; the procrastinators ode. The last newsletter was Summer 2004 and here it is Winter 2008. We’ll try to do better with intervals between newsletters.

As you can tell we are trying something a little different this time: a webbased newsletter.

This newsletter’s “Where are they now?” column covers the faculty of 1969-1970: three of us are still teaching at Oakland, Professors Chipman, Nachman, and Schochetman (although Winter 2008 is the last semester for Curt Chipman). Others have retired or moved on. We are not sure of the whereabouts of two of the faculty who came to work at OU that year, Mike Brand (last seen teaching math at Essex Community College in Baltimore) and Steve Takiff. If you have any information about them, please let us know.

The department has added a new hanging to its wall collection. Through a generous gift from Professor Jerrold Grossman, we now have a large graph depicting the mathematical genealogy of the current mathematics and statistics faculty (yours truly is descended almost directly from Gauss). In addition, a smaller collaboration graph illustrating the joint publications of members of the department is also on display.

Since 2004 we have lost several faculty. In statistics, Professor James Pan left us to work in industry and Professor Ananda Sen left us for a research job at the University of Michigan. Professor Jack Tsui retired this year and Professor Curt Chipman finishes his last semester of phased retirement this Winter. Alan Park returned from a leave with the Korean Institute of Advanced Study, and resigned this Fall. Since the previous newsletter we have hired three new faculty and are conducting a search this year for another statistician. Professor Harvey Qu (pronounced Chiew) hired in 2004, comes to us from the Statistics Department of the University of Michigan by way of Phizer. Originally from Albania, Professor Tony Shaska, an algebraic geometer, did his undergraduate work at University of Michigan-Dearborn, his Ph. D. at University of Florida, and came to us in 2005, after two years as a Visiting Professor at University of California at Irvine and two years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Idaho. Professor Dorin Drignei graduated from the Department of Statistics at Iowa State, did some post-doc work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and we hired him in Fall of 2006. This year we are searching for a new statistician.

Ravi Khattree was made a fellow of the American Statistical Association in Summer 2004. Eddie Cheng became our latest full Professor this summer. Anna Spagnuolo received a well deserved promotion to Associate Professor in Fall of 2005. Similar well deserved promotions to Associate Professor were earned by Professor Serge Kruk in Summer 2006, and Professor László Lipták in Summer of 2007. Jack Nachman was appointed chairperson for a second 3 year term in Summer 2006.

The past three years has seen a leap in the number of externally funded grants. Bo-nan Jiang, Anna Spagnuolo (see below), and Peter Shi have received NSF research grants, Eddie Cheng and Serge Kruk have received grants from General Motors, Jack Nachman received and NSF REU grant (see below), Wendy Zhang has received support from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Tony Shaska has received NSF funding for an international conference held here at Oakland and a NATO Advanced Study Institute Grant (see below). Ravi Khattree and Gary McDonald have received funding from General Motors for a workshop (see below). We’re applying for and getting more external dollars.

For the past several years the Department has provided the stipend for one Ph.D. teaching assistantship from money donated by alumni and friends (hint, hint). More information about our Ph.D. students appears below.

Let us know how you are doing. Send us your current address and/or email address.

Jack Nachman

Chairperson

nachman@oakland.edu

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