Department of Mathematics
Seminars
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Monday (8/11)
N/A - No Summer Seminars
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Tuesday (8/12)
N/A - No Summer Seminars
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Wednesday (8/13)
N/A - No Summer Seminars
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Thursday (8/14)
N/A - No Summer Seminars
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Friday (8/15)
N/A - No Summer Seminars
Events
Check Out
Microtutorials
Math Alliance
Hours & Contact
Find us at:
Skye Hall 208
Contact us at:
(951) 827-3113
We'll be available at:
9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Department Staff are on a hybrid schedule
Highlights
UCR Mathematics 2025 Graduation
New Faculty - Tom Gannon
The UCR Math Department proudly announces that Dr. Tom Gannon joined our department as an Assistant Professor in 2025. Prior to joining UCR, he postdoced as an Hedrick Assistant Adjunct Professor at University of California, Los Angeles. He obtained his BA with dual major in Advanced Mathematics and Accounting in Michigan State University in 2016, and then earned his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Sam Raskin in 2022.
Dr. Gannon’s research centers around geometric representation theory, as well as more broadly in its connections to general representation theory, algebraic geometry, mathematical physics, the Langlands program, and homotopy theory.
2025 ASA/CSSA/SSSA National Student Recognition
Maritssa Nolasco, a fourth-year Mathematics for Teachers of Secondary School major at UC Riverside, has been honored with the 2025 ASA/CSSA/SSSA National Student Recognition Award for her outstanding contributions to agricultural research and student mentorship. As part of the Digital Agriculture Fellowship (DAF), Maritssa applied her mathematics skills to cutting-edge soil research, using gamma-ray spectrometry and high-resolution satellite imagery to analyze soil variability in California’s Salinas Valley—critical for improving water and fertilizer efficiency in lettuce farming. Under the mentorship of Dr. Elia Scudiero, she not only developed strong technical expertise but also served as a peer mentor, guiding fellow students through research and presentations. With plans to pursue a teaching credential and master’s degree in math education at UCR, Maritssa continues to blend research, education, and service into a meaningful career path.
2024 - 2025 M.M. Rao Award Recipient - Nicholas Chiem
The 2024-25 M.M. Rao Award winner is Nicholas Chiem. Nick's research lies at the intersection of dynamical systems, spectral theory, and mathematical physics. He focuses on proving Anderson localization via positivity and large deviation estimates for the Lyapunov exponent. Now in his third year, Nick has already authored a single-author paper and is currently working on three additional projects. In his paper, he proved the uniform positivity of the Lyapunov exponent for certain potentials generated by Arnold’s cat map which is the first result of its kind for such maps and extends earlier work by others including his advisor, Professor Zhenghe Zhang. Congratulations!
2024 - 2025 Bryce Mason Award Winners
The Math Department proudly announces the 2025 winners of the Bryce-Mason Award. They are Xavier Madrid and Mark Sandey.
Xavier Madrid has excelled in many upper division math courses. Faculty recommendations highlighted his strong proof-writing skills, exceptional potential in mathematics, and respectful, responsible collaboration with peers both in coursework and in research settings.
Mark Sandey has an outstanding academic record, including excellent performance in several graduate level courses. Faculty recommendations highlighted their active participation in class discussions, collaborations with fellow students, and engagement in various research projects.
Congratulations Xavier and Mark!
2024 - 2025 Bosch Award Winners
The Math Department proudly announces the 2025 winners of the Bosch Award. These students stood out not only for their strong performance in advanced math courses, but also for their enthusiastic faculty support.
Madison Juliana Oliva for her great coursework, evident passion for mathematics, and impressive contributions to undergraduate research.
Jackeline Medina for her great course performance as well as her willingness to take on challenging theoretical projects and contribute to new research work.
Congratulations Madison and Jackeline!
Outstanding Visiting Assistant Professor Awards
This year the UCR Mathematics Outstanding Visiting Assistant Professor Awards go to Esther Banaian, Liping Deng and Pallav Goyal. Congratulations! To learn about their accomplishments and contributions for the 2024-2025 academic year, please visit the VAP awards page.
National Science Foundation CAREER Award - Matthew Durham
The Mathematics Department proudly announces that Professor Matthew Durham is the winner of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award on Geometry of Mapping Class Groups and Surface Bundles.
The mathematics in this research project centers around questions in geometry and topology, which are broadly concerned with understanding various notions of shape. This project focuses on 2-dimensional spaces called surfaces, which are fundamental in many areas of mathematics. Surfaces can be flat, like a piece of paper, or curved, like the outside of a ball, a donut, or a saddle, and the various shapes they take often strongly constrain the shapes of the higher dimensional spaces in which they live. The educational portion of this project involves a variety of activities aimed at recruiting and supporting marginalized students into mathematics. The first part continues a series of workshops featuring mini-courses by early career speakers from underrepresented groups on their cutting-edge research aimed at graduate students. The second part establishes a series of undergraduate research and recruitment events connecting undergraduate mathematics researchers in Southern California with graduate recruiters from programs in the region. The third part is a Topical Pedagogy Seminar which will provide graduate students and postdocs training in incorporating topical material into foundational mathematics courses.
A remarkable and ubiquitous example of this mathematical phenomenon is a surface bundle, which just like a donut, can be sliced so that the cross-sections are surfaces. Unlike a donut, however, as one moves through most surface bundles, the surface cross-sections can twist and deform in complicated ways. This twisting?which essentially determines the bundle?is encoded in the mapping class group, which, among other things, is the collection of all symmetries of the space of shapes that a surface can take, also known as Teichmüller space. The first part of the research program aims to develop a powerful fleet of combinatorial techniques for studying the geometry of mapping class groups and Teichmüller spaces, as well as their structure at infinity. The second part focuses on the geometry of surface bundles arising naturally from dynamics.
In more detail, this project will investigate the coarse geometry of the mapping class group, Teichmüller space, and surface bundles using the tools of geometric group theory. The first part aims to address a family of results showing that mapping class groups can be coherently locally modeled by CAT(0) cube complexes, allowing for the construction of new metrics with a variety of applications, including about their geometry and topology at infinity. The second part studies the geometry of surface bundles of Veech surfaces and their combinations, as well as developing a Sullivan-like notion of structural stability for the subgroups associated to a variety of surface bundles with nice curvature properties.
Distinguished Teaching Award 2024/25
The Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) is a highly competitive and distinctive award recognizing a graduate student's teaching excellence. It is awarded to only a few graduate students annually. For 2025 the Graduate Division awarded only three Distinguished Teaching Awards: two in STEM and one in Humanities. Based upon a careful review of nomination letters submitted by faculty, students, and peers and teaching evaluations, the DTA Selection Committee determined that a Mathematics Graduate Student demonstrated consistently superior classroom performance as a teaching assistant and selected...
Shane Rankin as a recipient of the 2025 Distinguished Teaching Award !!!
Please join us in congratulating him on this achievement!
Outstanding Teaching Assistants 2024/25
Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations for the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for 2024-25! The OTA Award is based on a TA's consistent superior teaching performance.
Please join me in congratulating our Outstanding Teaching Assistants (OTA) for 2024-25
