SLMath_Flyer_MSRI-UP_2026 (PDF)
Student Opportunities
23rd Annual Undergraduate STEM Research Showcase
On November 7th, DePaul hosted its 23rd Annual Undergraduate STEM Research Showcase. At the showcase, DePaul students communicated their research findings with the scientific community through poster presentations and research talks. Several Mathematical Sciences students presented their work, including:
Oral Presentations
- Umid Ahmadali, The Six-Vertex Model with Partial Domain Wall Boundary Conditions (pDWBC) and the Probability Distribution of the Type-C Vertex in the Final Row
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Karl Liechty - Umid Ahmadali, Non-Distributive Intervals on the Type-B Tamari Lattice
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Emily Barnard - Owen Levens, Polynomials Arising from Sorted Binomial Coefficients
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Allan Berele -
Nicolas Oses Frola, The Effectiveness of a Size-Based Recognition Model on Motif Identification and Characterization
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Shaun Mahoney, Penn State University
Poster Presentations
- Clara Campos de Araujo, The Dirichlet Eigenvalue Problem on Grid Domains
Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Sher
Work supported by the Undergraduate Research Assistantship Program (URAP) - Michael Czaplinski, A Tale of Knots with Many Twists and Turns
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung - Joosung Lee, Who Can Win in a Game of Knots?
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung - Owen Levens, Pascalian Root Asymptotics
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Allan Berele
Work supported by the Undergraduate Summer Research Program (USRP) - Jiahui Li, L-splines-of-order-4-algorithm
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung - Vu Phan, Expected Number of Turns to Complete a Generalized (m,n) Bingo Game
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ilie Ugarcovici - Grant Williams, Can ChatGPT Help Undergraduates Solve Graduate Level Abstract Geometry Problems?
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung
The showcase also featured a plenary talk by 2011 DePaul Math alumna Dr. Joelle Mbatchou. After graduating from DePaul in 2011, Dr. Mbatchou went on to earn Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Chicago. In Dr. Mbatchou’s current role as a Senior Statistical Geneticist at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, she works on the development of statistical methods and computational tools for large-scale data sets. You can read more about her work here.
Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Wisdom in Mathematics (NCUWM)
The Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Wisdom in Mathematics (NCUWM) is accepting applications for participants and poster presenters until November 14. This conference is open to all undergraduates and provides most of the local funding as well as some travel support. Students may present research talks or posters, or they can attend without presenting. The conference is helpful for all students, whether they know they want to go to graduate school in math or whether they like math and are unsure what to do with it. Please consider applying!
The conference will take place January 30 – February 1, 2026. More information can be found here: NCUWM
For information on carpooling/caravanning with students from nearby institutions, please reach out to Prof. Bockting (sarah.bockting@depaul.edu).
Call for Applications: Big East Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium
We are excited to share with you a terrific research opportunity for our students! DePaul University will be participating in the Big East Research Poster Symposium that will be held in New York City on March 14, 2026. Up to 5 students will be able to attend this opportunity to present on their faculty-sponsored research, learn about the research of their peers, network with students across the 11 colleges within the Big East conference, and attend the Championship basketball game held at Madison Square Garden.
Click here to read the full Student Call for Applications- Big East Symposium. The travel dates are March 13-15, and DePaul covers up to $1225 in funding,
The deadline for application is on December 8, 2025. Applications should be submitted to academicinnovation@depaul.edu.
DMC Spring Conference Trips
The DePaul Math Club sent a small group of about 5 students on a back-to-back conference trip over Spring Break. First they headed down to Joliet on Friday for the annual ISMAA meeting at the University of St. Francis. That night, they drove even further down to Terra Haute, Indiana, so that they could catch Rose-Hulman’s Undergraduate Research Conference the next day. Funnily enough, the troupe was mostly made up of graduate students. Even so, they all had a blast!
They saw all sorts of presentations, from urban topology to aquariums of elliptic curves. Although many talks were geared towards more of an undergraduate audience, there was plenty for our algebraist graduate students to enjoy, too. Going to two separate conferences in two days was a lot of driving. But it was also a lot of fascinating mathematics. Plus, the combination of bison spotting (that’s right, Kaelan and Graham were up close and personal with a herd of bison, please ask for pics! See the sample below!), followed by a sushi dinner at the end of the journey made it all worthwhile.
Combinatorics of Coxeter Groups (WQ class)
Looking for an interesting class to fill out your winter schedule? Check out Dr. Petersen’s course on the combinatorics of Coxeter groups! In the class, you will use combinatorial thinking to understand the structure of Coxeter groups. The primary example is how combinatorics of permutations connect to properties of the symmetric group. A PDF of the flyer can be found here.
CSH Scholarship Applications are Open!
The CSH 2024 scholarship application period is officially open! You are strongly encouraged to apply! Be sure to fill out both the General Application and the CSH Application when you log into Scholarship Connect. The process is quick and easy!
A PDF of the flyer with more info can be found here: CSH Scholarships AQ 24 – Flyer
Math Research Opportunities for Summer 2025
Already thinking of all the cool math you’re hoping to do next summer? Then take a look at this page!
https://sites.google.com/view/mathreu
It contains a listing of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs) aimed at mathematics students that will plan to run in the summer of 2025.
Interested in doing research closer to Chicago? Then you might consider applying to the CSH Undergraduate Summer Research Program (URSP). Not sure where to start? Reach out to the math department’s undergraduate research coordinator, Dr. Emily Barnard, at e.barnard@depaul.edu!
EDGE Summer Program
Applications for the EDGE Summer Program are now open! Apply today.
The EDGE Summer Program is a four-week, residential session designed to prepare a cohort of gender nonconforming individuals to thrive in their PhD programs in the mathematical sciences. The 2025 EDGE Summer Program will be held June 1 – June 28, 2025 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Program activities include:
- Four core workshops in courses such as algebra, analysis, measure theory, and machine learning.
- Daily collaborative problem sessions with advanced graduate student mentors.
- Regular office hours and highly personalized feedback from facilitators.
- Weekly colloquium on a variety of research topics.
- Special discussions on equity and identity in mathematics, teaching practices, and other professional development skills.
The EDGE Foundation will cover all travel, room, and board expenses related to the Summer Program. Program participants will also receive a modest stipend.
Applicants to the program should be women or gender nonconforming individuals who: 1) are applying to PhD programs in the mathematical sciences or 2) just completed their first year in a PhD program in the mathematical sciences. Students from underrepresented minority groups are especially encouraged to apply.
Applications for the 2025 EDGE Summer Program are now available at https://www.mathprograms.org/db/programs/1338. Applications are due February 14, 2025. For more information, visit https://www.edgeforwomen.org/summer-session/. Please send any questions to edgestaff@edgeforwomen.org.
2024 Summer Undergraduate Research
Several students from the DePaul mathematics community spent their summers engaging in full-time mathematical research. Some students conducted research with DePaul faculty as part of the Undergraduate Summer Research Program, while others conducted research at external institutions. Regardless of location, students learned to ask and answer their own questions, and even proved things that had never been proven before! So cool!
At the end of the summer, the following students came together and presented their work at the 2024 Mathematical Sciences Summer Research Showcase:
- Rose Bittle, Modifications to the Spiral Array
- Clara Campos, Optimal Transportation on Histograms (Research mentor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung)
- Erik Dahlen, The Imbalance of a vector in a d-dimensional hypercube and the Eulerian numbers (Research mentor: Dr. T. Kyle Petersen)
- Joosung Lee, Imbalance and Eulerian numbers (Research mentor: Dr. T. Kyle Petersen)
- Owen Levens, Bijection, Collaboration, and Perseverance in Global Pattern Avoidance (Research mentor: Dr. Bridget Tenner)
- Blair Johnson, Odd-Even Transposition Sort (Research mentor: Dr. T. Kyle Petersen)
- Nicholas Oses Frola, Finding Frobenius Symmetry for Four Element Sets (Research mentor: Dr. David Sher)
- Olivia Medina, 2D Conical Radon Transform used in Medical Imaging (Research mentor: Dr. Enrico Au-Yeung)
Abstracts for the student talks can be found here: 2024 Summer Research Showcase Abstracts
Interested in learning more about these students’ experiences? Keep an eye out for upcoming DePaul Math Club talks!
Are you interested in conducting mathematical research? (Great!) You can start by talking to the faculty members you know or by reaching out to the MAT department’s undergraduate research coordinator, Dr. Emily Barnard (e.barnard@depaul.edu).