The University of North Georgia has received a $24,000 National Science Foundation grant to aid its efforts in hosting the 38th annual Southeastern-Atlantic Regional Conference on Differential Equations.
Set for Oct. 6-7, the conference in the Martha T. Nesbitt Academic Building on UNG’s Gainesville Campus will seek to connect the field's experts and its newer members.
Ramjee Sharma, assistant professor of mathematics at UNG, was the principal investigator for the grant. Sharma said this is the first conference of its kind the Department of Mathematics has hosted on the Gainesville Campus. The grant will cover travel expenses for participants.
"This grant is going to be very helpful in supporting and making this conference successful," Sharma said.
Irene M. Gamba from the University of Texas, Peter Constantin from Princeton University, and Ratnasingham Shivaji from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro are the plenary speakers who will present for an hour each. Other attendees will present at 20-minute parallel sessions during the two-day conference. A forum discussing open problems in differential equations is also scheduled.
"Experts, beginning researchers and graduate students will be brought together to share their research and develop a research network," Sharma said.
"It's a way to build your reputation and show what you're capable of doing," Sims said.Ryan Thompson, assistant professor of mathematics at UNG and co-principal investigator on the NSF grant, said those connections will be invaluable for the graduate students.
"They can talk to the experts," said Thompson, a 2009 mathematics graduate from UNG who earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Notre Dame. "They can see how experts in the field present their research."
The conference also will allow UNG faculty members to share their research with some of their colleagues from across the region, Sharma said. About 100 people from across the U.S. and 25 from overseas are registered for the conference.
If the event goes well, Thompson said it could open the door for other mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry conferences to come to UNG in the future.
"It's certainly going to put UNG on the map," Thompson said.
