Byungchul Cha
Short Bio
I am a Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College in Allentown PA. After teaching at Hendrix College (a small liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas) for three years, I came to Muhlenberg College in 2007. During my Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University (a research university in Baltimore, Maryland), I specialized in number theory. My research interests include elliptic curves, distribution of zeros of various L-functions in a function fields setting, and intrinsic Diophantine approximations. More generally, I am interested in anything related to prime numbers, such as 2, 3, 5, 7, etc.
At Muhlenberg College, I teach a variety of mathematics courses, ranging from calculus to upper-level electives. Recently, I have been regularly teaching an introductory statistics class.
Essential Info
What's new?
(Oct 2023) A joint paper with R. Conceicao, entitled "A polynomial analogue of Berggren’s theorem on Pythagorean triples", has been accepted for publication in Proc. Am. Math. Soc. A preprint version is available in the arxiv server: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.02144
(Sep 2023) A joint paper with D. H. Kim, entitled "Intrinsic Diophantine approximation on circles and spheres" has been accepted for publication in Mathematika. A preprint version is available in the arxiv server: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.00848.
(Sep 2023) I am selected as one of the inaugural recipients of the AMS-Simons Research Enhancement Grants for Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) Faculty.
(Aug 2023) Emmy Lin ('26) participated in an undergraduate poster session at the 2023 MathFest in Tampa, FL, based on her summer research, entitled, "Approximating irrational triangles".
(Jan 2023) My undergraduate collaborators (Catherine Barrish, Charles Ohanian, Amanda Sodl) participated in an undergraduate poster session at the 2023 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston. This was highlighted in an article published in Muhlenberg's website.
(July 2021) Beginning in the fall semester of 2021, I serve as chair of the mathematics and computer science department.