Message from the Chair
Dear Alumni and Friends of the Mathematics Department,
Let me begin my first message to you as chair of the Department of Mathematics with thanks to Dr. Dorina Mitrea, who led the department incredibly well for six years and thus passed things to me in excellent condition. The 2025–2026 academic year certainly kept us quite busy. We hosted a statewide meeting and an international one, welcomed a distinguished lecturer, awarded a new endowed scholarship for the first time, graduated seven Ph.D. students, and spent much of the year collaborating in wonderful community. What follows is a tour of the year, with links to the fuller stories.
The Inaugural Johns Family Scholarship in Mathematics
The department awarded the Johns Family Scholarship in Mathematics for the first time this spring. The scholarship goes annually to an outstanding undergraduate pursuing a major in mathematics, or to a student in the University Scholar, Business Fellow, or similar program with a concentration in mathematics. It exists because of the generosity of Dr. Baxter Johns, Professor Emeritus in our department, and his wife Dena Johns, a longtime faculty member and Mathematics Department Chair at Vanguard College Preparatory School in Waco. We were glad to honor them both at the Spring Luncheon.
The inaugural recipient is Evan Roos, a sophomore from Robinson, Texas, and a graduate of Vanguard. Evan is pursuing a Bachelor of Science as a Science Research Fellow, with a secondary major in mathematics and a minor in chemistry and physics. He was a member of the 2025 Baylor Putnam team, and on our first-place Math Bowl team (see below).
Many thanks to Baxter and Dena, and to everyone whose support has built up the department’s scholarship and research funds over the years. We are grateful for the significant impact it has on our students.
Lance Littlejohn Scholarship Award
The Lance Littlejohn Scholarship for Graduate Research in Mathematics, endowed by Jim and Lisa Meyerhoff in honor of Dr. Lance Littlejohn’s service and leadership as chair, was awarded to two students at a departmental reception on December 11: Blanca Radillo-Murguia and Rafael Morales. The scholarship recognizes graduate students of strong research promise. Blanca, who works with Dr. Paul Hagelstein, spoke of the award as a milestone in her path as a first-generation student and as a woman in science. Rafael, who works with Dr. Andrei Martínez-Finkelshtein, noted the value it affirmed in his work. Both completed their doctorates this spring (see below).
Baylor’s First ICM Satellite Conference
In June, Baylor hosted its first satellite conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians, a milestone for the department. Two satellite sessions ran in parallel on campus, June 8–10: one on Partial Differential Equations and Harmonic Analysis, organized by Dr. Dorina Mitrea, and one on Spectral Theory, organized by Dr. Fritz Gesztesy. Together, they brought more than 60 preeminent researchers from all over the world to campus. They assembled a world-class program, with plenary lectures by Pavel Exner, Klaus Kirsten, and Yuri Latushkin among many others, bringing important visibility to Baylor and our Department.
Hosting the 105th Texas Section MAA Meeting
On March 27–28 we hosted the 105th Annual Meeting of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America. The meeting drew 339 attendees (136 faculty and 203 students) from colleges and universities across the state, with 25 faculty presentations and 40 student talks, a graduate fair, invited addresses, breakout sessions, and a panel discussion on artificial intelligence in mathematics education. A student poster session, new this year, attracted 18 presenters; our own Ph.D. student Pedro Takemura took third place. In the Math Bowl, our team of Dominic Handsborough, Lucy Lu, Zayn Matthews, Evan Roos, and Paul Yao finished first out of 25 teams. A meeting of this size is a tremendous departmental undertaking, and I am grateful to everyone who made it run.
The 15th Undergraduate Lecture Series
Holly Krieger, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Murray Edwards College, headlined the 15th Baylor Undergraduate Lecture Series in Mathematics. Her public lecture, “Loops, Chaos, and the Limits of Certainty,” was given on April 22 in the Marrs McLean Science Building, and she followed it on April 23 with a colloquium in the Sid Richardson Building, “A Tour of the Mandelbrot Set.” Krieger works in arithmetic dynamics and complex dynamical systems; her honors include the London Mathematical Society Whitehead Prize and the American Institute of Mathematics Alexanderson Award. A good number of our students knew her already from Numberphile, where her videos have introduced very large audiences to dynamics and number theory. Both talks were very well attended and well received by our students.
Celebrating Our Graduates
Seven students completed the Ph.D. this year, one of our largest cohorts in recent memory:
- Blake Allan, advisor Dr. Fritz Gesztesy
- Drew Anderson, advisor Dr. Rob Kirby
- Hayden Henson, advisor Dr. Ron Morgan
- Ellie Matter, advisor Dr. Jameson Graber
- Rafael Morales, advisor Dr. Andrei Martinez-Finkelshtein
- Blanca Radillo-Murguia, advisor Dr. Paul Hagelstein
- Pedro Takemura, advisor Dr. Marius Mitrea
Eight students earned the M.S.: Lauren Engelthaler, Teresa Gulding, Luke Hanson, Jesus Hernandez-Rodriguez, Vishwam Khapre, Shandi Stiner Navarro, Robert Stansbury, and Ambrose Terneus. Congratulations to all of them.
The Spring Luncheon and Our Undergraduate Awards
The department gathered before finals for the annual Spring Luncheon, where we honored the Johnses, recognized this year’s award recipients, and sent off our graduating master’s and doctoral students. Matthew Freeman received the Beth Wilson Award, Graeme Reinhart the Outstanding Mathematics Major Award, and London Zirretta the Outstanding Mathematics Education Major Award. Martha du Preez and Ellie Stephens received the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award.
Graduate Student Life
The Graduate Student Seminar Series ran two events this spring, both organized around very practical topics for our students’ professional development. In March, a research preview brought several students together to describe how they found their advisors, what working with them is like, and what their research areas look like from the inside; James Kessinger (complex analysis), Katie Harveson (applied mathematics), Michael Walton (algebra), and Maricela Ramirez (real analysis) presented, giving newer students an inside look at the department’s research life. In April, a job-documents workshop set up four stations, each hosted by an upper-level student fresh off the application process, with example materials and advice. They were both a great success.
We also marked Graduate Student Appreciation Week in the graduate lounge with snacks, refreshments, and a few giveaways. It is a small thanks for all our graduate students contribute to the life of our department: teaching our undergraduates, helping drive the research program, and giving the department a good deal of its character.
Undergraduate Life
In October, members of the Möbius Mathematics Society traveled to St. Mary’s University in San Antonio for the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. Students heard contributed talks across a range of topics, attended plenary lectures by Kate Meyer (Carleton College) and Brian Miceli (Trinity University). They also worked the graduate school fair and panel discussions. For undergraduates weighing what comes after Baylor, a weekend like that is worth a semester of advising.
Recognizing Our Staff
Hannah Baer, a student worker in the department, was named a Student Employee of the Year. Anyone who has walked through our office knows why. Her work is careful and dependable, she takes initiative, and she brings a warmth that faculty, staff, students, and visitors all notice. Outside the department she leads with Young Life at Robinson High School, volunteers through her church, and recently completed a mission trip to Amsterdam. We will certainly miss Hannah when she graduates.
Community
Our third annual Family Picnic at Cameron Park in April brought faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and their families together for an afternoon of barbecue, homemade dishes, and lawn games. The turnout was great and three years in, it has now become a tradition that we all look forward to!
New Colleagues This Year
Dr. Son Tu joined us as an Assistant Professor, coming from a visiting position at Michigan State, where he worked with Olga Turanova. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2022 under Hung Tran. His research is in nonlinear partial differential equations, particularly the Hamilton–Jacobi equations that arise in optimal control, and ranges over homogenization, weak KAM theory, and most recently free boundary problems in fluid mechanics.
Dr. Artur Andrade joined us as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, having earned his Ph.D. at Temple University. He works at the interface of partial differential equations, harmonic analysis, and geometric measure theory.
Dr. Ahsan Ali joined us in the summer as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, working with Dr. Robert Kirby on an NSF-funded project. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics at the University of New Mexico. His work involves multigrid solvers, iterative methods, and scientific computing.
All three bring research programs that connect naturally to work already underway in our department.
Final Thoughts
Taking over as chair has given me a close look at how much of this department’s work is invisible from the outside: the advising conversations, the seminar someone organizes on top of a full teaching load, the staff who keep a 339-person conference running smoothly. My thanks to all of them, and to you, whose support of our students continues to make a notable difference in their lives. I hope you will stay in touch, and I hope you will come by to visit the department when you are in Waco.
Sic ’em Bears!
John Davis