Math for Students from Underrepresented Groups
An important initiative these days is to try to interest students from underrepresented groups in careers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. Mathematics is key to all of these fields, so it is particularly noteworthy that the University of Minnesota Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications will host the Blackwell-Tapia Conference, the premier national event for underrepresented mathematical sciences researchers on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3 and 4. The UM press release continues:
This is the fourth in a series of bi-annual conferences honoring David Blackwell and Richard Tapia, two seminal figures who inspired a generation of African-American, Native American and Latino/Latina students to pursue careers in mathematics. This conference is designed to carry forward their work, informing the next generation of students about career opportunities in mathematics and providing a chance for them to network with other students and with mathematical scientists who play a leadership role in their communities.To kick off the conference, Tapia will entertain more than 100 area high school students with his “Math is Cool� presentation.... Tapia was the first Hispanic elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. As part of the presentation he will explain how he used math to improve the sport of BMX bicycle racing and how he defeated “the curse of lane eight.� Also, math major Josef Sifuentes will show how he combined his artistic and mathematical sides to create a psychedelic music video. Conference highlights include talks by William Massey and Erhan Cinlar of Princeton University, Illya Hicks of Texas A&M University, Mark Lewis of Cornell University, Ricardo Cortez of Tulane University; poster presentations; panel discussions on career opportunities in mathematics and the recruitment and retention of a diverse mathematics faculty.
A high point of the meeting will be the awarding of 2006 Blackwell-Tapia prize to Massey for his outstanding achievements in queuing theory, stochastic networks, modeling of communications systems, and for increasing diversity in mathematical sciences.