UMW Math Students Win Big at National Conference
UMW mathematics majors Juniper Creskoff and Ashton Crawford were each individually recognized for their research presentations at the recent annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America held in Boston, Massachusetts.
Creskoff and Crawford presented the results of research projects which began in the 2025 Piscopo-Rodgers Summer Science Institute under the mentorship of Professor of Mathematics and Director of Undergraduate Programs Randall Helmstutler.
Creskoff’s project, titled “Determining the Maximum Probability Gain in the Birthday Problem,” provides a careful analysis of particular trends in probability that occur in applications relevant to cryptographic attacks. In “Splitting the Bill: An Extension of the Dining Cryptographers Problem,” Creskoff shows how to implement different algebraic structures in order to generalize a well-known cryptographic protocol used in anonymous communication networks.
The UMW math students traveled to the national conference under a grant from the Piscopo-Rodgers endowment, where they presented in the Research in Motion poster session for undergraduate mathematics research. Over 130 mathematics students from across the country participated in the session, which was judged by a panel of professional mathematicians.
Both Crawford and Creskoff were recognized in the undergraduate award ceremony with certificates for outstanding poster presentations. Learn more in this Beyond the Classroom blog post.
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