Keith Mellinger, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, recently traveled to two conferences to present various results of his research. First, was the 2nd Annual Conference for the Exchange of Mathematical Ideas, a conference he helped to organize, held at the University of Northern Iowa. There he spoke about Blocking Semiovals and Their Applications to Cryptography. He also traveled to London, England, for the 24th British Combinatorial Conference where he delivered the presentation titled Minimal Kakeya Sets.
Farnsworth Lectures at Boys’ State of Virginia
Stephen Farnsworth
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, delivered a lecture entitled “Virginia’s Candidate Selection Process: Examining Recent Primaries and Conventions” to the roughly 800 high school students attending the American Legion Boys’ State of Virginia at Radford University on June 17.
Leo Lee Presents Research at Regional Conference
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Jangwoon “Leo” Lee, traveled to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, last weekend to deliver an invited talk at the Spring Central Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society. His talk was titled Discretization of Stochastic Optimal Control Problems by the h x p Version of the Stochastic Galerkin FEM.
Keith Mellinger Presents on Math & Music
Associate Professor and Chair of Mathematics Keith Mellinger recently attended the Mathematical Association of America‘s regional meeting held at Salisbury University. At the meeting, Mellinger presented Eigentriads – a musical offering in which he discussed eigenvectors, a topic found in any undergraduate course in linear algebra, and an amusing relationship they have with diminished and augmented triads.
Larry Lehman Publishes Research
Larry Lehman, professor of mathematics, published the article “Suborder Polynomials Modulo Primes” in the February 2013 issue of JP Journal of Algebra, Number Theory and Applications. This article relates patterns in recursively defined sequences to the roots over finite fields of a certain class of polynomials.
Radio Show Features UMW Psychology Professor
University of Mary Washington Associate Professor of Psychology Miriam Liss will discuss the link between attachment parenting techniques and feminism in an interview scheduled to air on the “With Good Reason” public radio program. The show, “Humor Works,” will air beginning Saturday, Feb. 23.
Miriam Liss
The interview will focus on the 2012 study “Feminism and Attachment Parenting: Attitudes, Stereotypes, and Misperceptions” by Liss and her colleague Mindy Erchull. The study, based on a survey of hundreds of self-described feminists and non-feminists, shows that attachment parenting techniques, like co-sleeping, breastfeeding and carrying a child in a body sling, are more popular with feminists than non-feminists. The study also reveals that people hold stereotypes about the ‘typical feminist,’ when in fact those stereotypes aren’t true.
Liss, a licensed clinical psychologist, is an expert on gender issues and autism and developmental disorders. She received the UMW Outstanding Young Faculty Member Award in 2005 and was a finalist for the SCHEV state award in 2006 and 2009. Her research has appeared in numerous journals including the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. The 2013 study “Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting on College Students’ Well-Being” and the 2012 study “Insight into the Parenthood Paradox: Mental Health Outcomes of Intensive Mothering,” both co-authored by Liss and her colleague Holly Schiffrin, garnered international media attention.
Liss earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Connecticut and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.
“With Good Reason” airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/.
“With Good Reason” is the only statewide public radio program in Virginia. It hosts scholars from Virginia’s public colleges and universities who discuss the latest in research, pressing social issues and the curious and whimsical. “With Good Reason” is produced for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is broadcast in partnership with public radio stations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Janusz Konieczny Publishes in Semigroup Forum
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics, has co-authored a research article, Centralizers in the full transformation semigroup, published in the journal Semigroup Forum.
Keith Mellinger Publishes Research Article
Keith Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, saw his co-authored article “Blocking semiovals containing conics” published in the January 2013 issue of Advances in Geometry. The article addresses the construction of blocking semiovals, a mathematical object that finds application in areas of modern cryptology and the design of experiments.
Leo Lee Presents Research in Korea
Janusz Konieczny Publishes in the Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics, has published a research article, Centralizers in the infinite symmetric inverse semigroup, in the Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society.