Five students presented four talks at the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (TUMC), and four more students attended. The conference was held at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, on October 27-28, 2023. Adrianna Flores-Vivas ’24 presented “Wolf Reintegration in Yellowstone National Park.” Ashley Odell ’24 and Madison Williams ’24 presented “Does Money Really Buy Happiness?”. Blue Goodson ’24 presented “The Mathematical Artistry of Portrait Making.” Johanna Campbell ’24 presented “To the Heart of the Milky Way.” The speakers gave preliminary presentations of their mathematics capstone projects under the supervision of Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton. Associate Professor of Physics Mark Bottorf co-supervised Cambell’s. Shelton also moderated two sessions of student talks. Zoe Kincaid ’24 attended, and first-year S-STEM/EQUIP students Amanda Mejia ’27, Juliana Elizondo ’27, and Alyanna Martinez ’27 also attended. The TUMC is partially supported by the National Science Foundation grant DMS-2226539. The Atkin Junior Professorship in Mathematics for Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer provided funding.

Three faculty members presented at MathFest, the national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, on August 2-7, 2023, in Tampa, FL. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Using R Projects to Explore Regression” in the Contributed Paper Session on Activities in Statistics and Data Science. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura co-led a four-hour Professional Enhancement Program, “Visualizing Projective Geometry Through Photographs and Perspective Drawings,” with Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “Resources for Faculty and Students” in the Contributed Paper Session on Teaching and Learning of Differential Equations.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton co-led an intense four-day virtual workshop, “Active Learning in Differential Equations Inspired by Modeling,” in June 2023 for 26 faculty participants from diverse institutions and backgrounds. In its second year, this workshop is part of the Online Professional Enhancement and Capacity Building for Instructional Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics (OPEN Math) program. OPEN Math is a collaborative project between the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU-B). Support for OPEN Math is provided by the National Science Foundation: MAA Award DUE-2111260 and CU-B Award DUE-2111273.

Southwestern had a great showing at the 2023 Meeting of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America, held March 24-26 in Stephenville, TX. Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr received the 2023 Ron Barnes Distinguished Service to Students Award, given in recognition of faculty who have distinguished themselves through service and support of undergraduate students within the Texas Section. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton received the 2023 Distinguished Service Award in recognition of faculty who have demonstrated exceptional service to the Texas Section. Shelton also served as Departmental Liaison and participated in the Business Meeting. Assistant Professor of Mathematics John Ross participated in the Project NeXT session. President Emeritus of Southwestern University and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Edward Burger presented an invited plenary talk, “Paper folding for the organically challenged: Uncovering beauty and structure through effective thinking.” We had eight student presentations, one of which won an award, by 13 students and one alum. This was the most student presentations by far of any institution besides the host institution. Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura supervised the following student talks: Zek McCormick ’24: “Applying Linear Algebra to Penrose Tilings” won an award for Best Student Paper Within a Session, Oliver Johnson ’24: “How accurately did Van Eyck paint the chandelier in the Arnolfini Portrait? A geometric analysis contributing to a decades-old debate,” and Isabella Robinson ’25, Oliver Johnson ’24: “Solving Sudoku Puzzles Through Linear Algebra.” Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr supervised the following student talks: Anderson Johnson ’24, Paige Thompson ’26, Kyla Gorman ’21: “Domino Antimagic Configurations,” Alley Koenig ’24, Casandra Nunez ’26: “Subtractive Edge Magic Labelings,” Kathryn Altman ’24, Lauren Calzado ’23: “An Exploration of Difference Distance Magic Graph Labelings,” and Aaron Garza ’26, Kaiden Salaz ’26: “What is the smallest area? A parabolic parable.” Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton supervised the following student talk: Emma Lewis ’23, Jillian Reese ’23: “An ODD Look at Theorems in Differential Equations.” This work was funded with a grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics, collaborating with a student team at the University of North Texas-Denton, supervised by Joe Iaia. A team of four students competed in the Math Bowl: Altman, Calzado, Koenig, and Jess Kazmir ’23, Yasmine Soto ’25, and Adrianna Flores-Vivas ’24 also attended the meeting.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton, with co-authors Bonnie Henderson ’18 and Michael Gebhardt ’16, published a chapter, “Acrobatics in a Parametric Arena,” in Mathematics Research for the Beginning Student. The volume is part of the book series, Foundation for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (FURM), which is devoted to increasing access to undergraduate research opportunities. Parts of Gebhardt’s and Henderson’s Mathematics capstone projects supervised by Shelton were included in this chapter. Professor of Kinesiology Scott McLean aided in data collection from video capture software generated by Henderson’s juggling of flower sticks in the fall of 2017. Research Assistants for this project included E. Wilson Cook ’22, Audrey Schumacher ’23, and Emily Thompson ’22