Ph.D.s 1990-1999

The Mathematical Science Institute (1986-1997) was supported for ten years by a grant from the Army Research Office. The four designated areas of research in the Institute were applied analysis, physical mathematics, numerical analysis and statistics and applied probability. For most of the institute existence (1987-1997), Anil Nerode served as Director.

On October eight 1998, to everyone surprise, a large Pumpkin was discovered at the top of McGraw tower. It remained there until the next spring.

Ninety three doctorates were awarded during this decade including sixteen to women. After the swings of the previous two decades, the annual rate of 9 to 10 per year became the norm. Thirty nine faculty supervised Ph.D.s during the period. The most active advisors were Richard Durrett (12 students) followed by Leonard Gross (9), Anil Nerode (6), Allen Hatcher (5), and Kenneth Brown, John Hubbard, Richard Shore, Roberts Strichartz and Karen Vogtmann (4).

1990 (16 doctorates)

Mark Brittenham

Title: Essential Laminations in Seifert-Fibered Spaces. Advisor: Allen Hatcher. Career: University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Francois Destrempes

Title: Invariants of Virtual Lattices over Group Rings with Applications to Galois Module Structure. Advisor: Stephen Chase. Career: University of Ottawa.

Ping Lee

Title: On the Vector-Scalar Potential Formulation of the Three Dimensional Eddy Current Problem. Advisor: James Bramble. Career: President and General Manager of BG Group China (Oil & Gas).

Gregory Lieb

Title: Holomorphic Motions and Teichmüller Space. Advisor: Clifford Earle. Career: Dresdner Kleinwort, Commerzbank; Alto Energy, LLC.

Ming Lin

Title: The Convergence of the U(1) Gauge Theory on Random Lattices in Three Dimensions. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Managing Director at Royal Bank of Scotland - ‎RBS Global Banking & Markets.

James Lipton

Title: Relating Kripke Models and Realizability. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: Wesleyan University.

Xialong Luo

Title: High-Dimensional Annihilating Branching Random Walks. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Sr. Director, Biostatistics at Celgene.

Randolph McCarthy

Title: Cyclic Homology of an Exact Category. Advisor: Daniel Grayson and Stephen Lichtenbaum. Career: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Claudia Neuhauser

Title: Ergodic Theorems for the Multitype Contact Process. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: University of Minnesota. Speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad.

Todd Peterson

Title: Convergence Properties of the Discontinuous Galerkin Method for a Scalar Hyperbolic Equation. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: University of Virginia; George Mason University;Director of Financial Engineering at Fannie Mae.

Emily Petrie

Title: Convergence of Power Series Invariants for Families of P-adic Galois Representations. Advisor: Shankar Sen. Career: Arizona State University; Merrimack College, MA.

Ambar Sengupta

Title: The Yang-Mills Measure for the Two-Sphere. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Louisiana State University.

Duminda Wijesekera

Title: Constructive Modal Logics. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: George Mason University.

Alexander Yakhnis

Title: Game Theoretic Semantics for Concurrent Programs and Their Specifications, Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: The College at Brockport (SUNY Brockport).

Vladimir Yakhnis

Title: Concurrent Programs, Calculus of State Strategies, and Gureviuch-Harrington Games. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: Vice President and Chief Scientist at STILMAN ADVANCED STRATEGIES LLC.

Yu Zhang

Title: A Power Law for Connectedness of Some Random Graphs at the Critical Point. Advisor: Harry Kesten. Career: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

1991 (8 doctorates)

Ernesto Acosta

Title: On the Essential Self-Adjointness of Dirichlet Operators on Non-Linear Path Space. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota.

Martin Bridson

Title: Geodesics and Curvature in Metric Simplicial Complexes. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: Oxford University. Speaker at the 2006 International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid.

Shuh-Jye Chern

Title: Mathematical Theory of the Barotropic Model in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics. Advisor: Jerrold Marsden. Career: National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan.

Erich Friedman

Title:First Passage Percolation on a Poisson Lattice. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Stetson University, Florida.

Steven Kautz

Title: Degrees of Random Sets. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: Iowa State University.

Alberto Setti

Title: Eigenvalue and Heat Kernel Estimates for the Weighted Laplacian on a Riemannian Manifold. Advisor: Robert Strichartz. Career: Università degli Studi dell'Insubria.

Seth Stafford

Title: Harmonic Functions on Manifolds of Nonnegative Ricci Curvature. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Director of Fusion Applications Architecture, Oracle Corporation.

Melanie Stein

Title: Groups of Piecewise Linear Homeomorphisms. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Trinity College.

1992 (11 doctorates)

Bruce Anderson

Title: Signed Sequences and Rolle's Restrictions: Why Not All Real Differentiable Functions and Polynomials Satisfying Rolle's Theorem Are Constructible. Advisor: Moss Sweedler. Career: Kent State University; ?

Charles Delman

Title: Essential Laminations in Knot Complements. Advisor: Allen Hatcher. Career: Eastern Illinois University.

John Darroch Faught

Title: Local Connectivity in a Family of Cubic Polynomials. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Chief Actuary at Swiss Re, South Africa.

Suresh Govindachar

Title: Explicit Weight Two Motivic Cohomology Complexes and Algebraic K-Theory. Advisor: Stephen Lichtenbaum. Career: Senior Engineer, Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America.

Zhenchun Guo

Title: The Regularity of Solutions to the Heat Equation Over Group-Valued Path Space. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Banking and Finance.

Susan Hermiller

Title: Rewriting Systems for Coxeter Groups. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

John Meier

Title: Endomorphisms of Negatively-Curved Polygonal Groups. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Lafayette College.

Alyson Reeves

Title: Combinatorial Structure on the Hilbert Scheme. Advisor: Michael Stillman and Peter Kahn. Career: Institute for Defense Analyses, Center for Computing Science.

Rachel Roberts

Title: Construction Taut Laminations. Advisor: Allen Hatcher. Career: Washington University in St Louis.

Li-Min Song

Title: Special Values of L-Functions of Curves Over Finite Fields. Advisor: Stephen Lichtenbaum. Career: unknown.

Yue Yang

Title: Priority Arguments and Reverse Mathematics. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: National University of Singapore.

1993 (8 doctorates)

Brian Hall

Title: The Bargmann-Segal "Coherent State" Transform for Compact Lie Groups. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: University of Notre Dame

Vee-Ming Lew

Title: The Semistability at Infinity for Multiple Extension Groups. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Wilkes University, PA.

Jenny Xiaoe Li

Title: Optimal Monetary Policy. Advisor: Karl Shell and Jerry Lloyd Bona. Career: Pennsylvania State University.

Antonio Machiavelo

Title: On Semi-Linear Representations over Local Fields. Advisor: Shankar Sen. Career: Universidade do Porto.

Yuan-Chung Sheu

Title: On Path Properties of Superdiffusions. Advisor: Eugene Dynkin. Career: National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.

Weng-Yin Yap

Title: A Combinatorial Geometry of the Whitehead Torsion of Finite Abelian Groups. Advisor: Keith Dennis. Career: National University of Singapore.

Linda Hong Zhao

Title: Frequentist and Bayesian Aspects of Some Nonparametric Estimation Problems. Advisor: J. T. Gene Hwang. Career: The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania.

Louis Zulli

Title: A Matrix for Computing the Jones Polynomial of a Knot. Advisor: Allen Hatcher. Career: Lafayette College.

1994 (8 doctorates)

Heike Dengler

Title: Poisson Approximations to Continuous Security Market Models. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Risk Management, Ernst & Young; Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

William Kalies

Title: Regularized Models of Phase Transformation in One-Dimensional Nonlinear Elasticity. Advisor: Philip Holmes. Career: Florida Atlantic University.

Sungchul Lee

Title: A Note On Greedy Lattice Animals. Advisor: Harry Kesten. Career: Yonsei University, South Korea.

Susan Lee

Title: Optimal Drift on the Unit Interval. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Actuary with Bolton Partners, Inc.

Lawrence Kwan Ho Ma

Title: Quasisymmetric Conjugacy of Degree N Critical Circle Map. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: National University of Singapore;?

John W. Parker

Title: Band-Limited Wavelets With Rotational Symmetry. Advisor: Robert Strichartz. Career: unknown.

Dierk Schleicher

Title: Internal Addresses in the Mandelbrot Set and Irreducibility of Polynomials. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Jacobs University Bremen.

Gengqiang Zhou

Title: Finiteness and Compactness for the Family of Isospectral Riemannian Manifolds. Advisor: Robert Strichartz. Career: unkown.

1995 (7 doctorates)

James Coykendall

Title: Normsets and Rings of Algebraic Integers. Advisor: Shankar Sen. Career: North Dakota State University.

John Paul Dalbec

Title: Geometry and Combinatorics of Chow Forms. Advisor: Bernd Sturmfels. Career: Software Specialist at Youngstown State University.

Ramin Farzaneh

Title: A Computer Generated Proof for the Existence of Periodic Orbits for Three-Dimensional Vector Fields. Advisor: John Guckenheimer. Career: Director of Software Engineering at Oracle Corp.

Jiaqi Luo

Title: Combinatorics and Holomorphic Dynamics: Captures, Matings and Newton's Method. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Beacon Software Development Company.

Niandong Liu

Title: Algebraic and Combinatorial Methods for Face Enumeration in Polytopes. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: Banking and Finance.

Gang Ma

Title: Brownian Motion and Admissible Limits. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Actuary, Financial Industry.

Weizhen Wang

Title: On Assessment of Bioequivalence (Mean, Variance). Advisor: J.T. Gene Hwang. Career: Wright State University.

1996 (6 doctorates)

Jeffrey Baggett

Title: Non-Normal Dynamics and Hydrodynamic Stability. Advisor: Lloyd Nicholas Trefethen. Career: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Tianwen (Tony) Cai

Title: Nonparametric Function Estimation via Wavelets. Advisor: Lawrence Brown. Career: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Richard Dunlap

Title: Superconvergence Points in Locally Uniform Finite Element Meshes for Second Order Two-Point Boundary Value Problems. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: Director of Engineering at SAI Global Compliance.

Boris Goldfarb

Title: Splitting Assembly Maps for Arithmetic Groups With Large Actions At Infinity. Advisor: James West. Career: State University of New York at Albany.

Birkett Huber

Title: Polyhedral Decompositions and Solving Sparse polynomial systems. Advisor: Bernd Sturmfels. Career: Software Engineer at Google.

Thomas Albert Stiadle

Title: Algebraic K-thoery and Assembly for Complexes of Groups. Advisor: James West. Career: Wells College.

1997 (5 doctorates)

Marcelo Aguiar

Title: Internal Categories and Quantum Groups. Advisor: Stephen Chase. Career: Texas A&M University; Cornell University.

Harel Barzilai

Title: Finiteness Properties for Handlebody Mapping Class Groups. Advisors: Allen Hatcher. Career: Salisbury University, Md.

Edward Bueler

Title: The Heat Kernel Weighted Hodge Laplacian on Noncompact Manifolds. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Henry Koewing Schenck

Title: Homological Methods in the Theory of Splines. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Nikhil Shah

Title: Predator Mediated Coexistence. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Software Development Engineer, Amazon.com.

1998 (15 doctorates)

Robert Bättig

Title:Completeness of securities market models-an operator point of view. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Died in 1997.

Eknath Belbase

Title: Coexistence in a Two-Species Reaction Diffusion Process Using a Hydrodynamic Limit. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Andrew Davidson & Co. Inc.

Debra Boutin

Title: Centralizers of Finite Subgroups of Automorphisms and Outer Automorphisms of Free Groups. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: Hamilton College, NY.

Jennifer Davoren

Title: Modal Logics for Continuous Dynamics. Advisor: Anil Nerode and Sergei Artemov. Career: The University of Melbourne.

Maria Gordina

Title: Holomorphic Functions and the Heat Kernel Measure on an Infinite Dimensional Complex Orthogonal Group. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: University of Connecticut.

Craig Jensen

Title: Cohomology of Aut(F(N)). Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: University of New Orleans; St. Michael’s College, VT.

Min Jeong Kang

Title: Asymptotic Behavior of Solutions of One-Dimensional Parabolic Spde. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: North Carolina State University.

Wicharn Lewkeeratiyutkul

Title: Perturbation Theorems for Supercontractive Semigroups. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Jeffrey Mitchell

Title: Short Time Behavior of Hermite Functions on Compact Lie Groups. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Robert Morris University.

Ricardo Oliva

Title: On the Combinatorics of External Rays in the Dynamics of the Complex Hénon Map. Advisors: John Smillie. Career: Senior Software Engineer, Box.

Lisa Anne Orlandi-Korner

Title: Actions of Artin Groups and Automorphism Groups on Ir-Trees. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: Owner of Cotton Cradles.

Shu-Yen Pan

Title: Local Theta Correspondence and Unrefined Minimal K-Types. Advisor: Dan Barbasch. Career: National Tsing Hua University.

David Reed Solomon

Title: Reverse Mathematics and Ordered Groups. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: University of Connecticut.

Alexander Teplayev

Title: Spectral Analysis on Infinite Sierpinski Gaskets. Advisor: Robert Strichartz. Career: University of Connecticut.

Yongjian Xiang

Title: Computing Thom-Boardman Singularities. Advisor: John Guckenheimer. Career: Two Sigma Investments, LLC.

1999 (9 doctorates)

Maria Fung

Title: Twisted Torsion on Compact Hyperbolic Spaces: a Representation-Theoretic Approach. Advisor: Birgit Speh. Career: Worcester State University.

Gonzalo Garcia

Title: On Conformal Metrics On The Euclidean Ball. Advisor: Jose Escobar. Career: Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.

Ilya German

Title: Hedging Options with Small Transaction Costs. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Senior Consultant at Solum Financial, London.

Dennis Hirschfeldt

Title: Degree Spectra of Relations on Computable Structures. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: University of Chicago.

Robert Milnikel

Title: Nonmonotic Logic: A Monotinic Approach. Advisor: Anil Nerode and Sergei Artemov. Career: Kenyon College.

Sudeb Mitra

Title: Teichmuller Theory and Holomorphic Motions. Advisor: Clifford Earle. Career: Queens College, City University of New York.

Shayan Sen

Title: Representations and Characters of an Extension of SL(3,R) by an Outer Automorphism. Advisor: Birgit Speh. Career: Senior Actuarial Manager at Aviva Canada.

Luis Miguel O'Shea

Title: Abelian Sesquisymplectic Convexity for Orbifolds. Advisor: Reyer Sjamaar. Career: Telecommunications Consultant, Mckinsey & Company.

David Mark Stephenson

Title: Asymptotic Density in an n-Threshold Randomly Coalescing and Annihilating Random Walk on the d-Dimensional Integer Lattice. Advisor: Harry Kesten. Career: eBay, Head of Business Analytics; Managing Director and Chief Data officer, DSI Analytics.