Graduate Student Awards

The Dr. Ralph Faudree Award in Mathematics:

As officially recorded by the University of Memphis, the family of Ralph Faudree has established an award for PhD students in mathematics.

Acknowledged internationally as an outstanding mathematician, Dr. Faudree's interest in and promotion of higher education helped to guide the University of Memphis toward increased standards for academic excellence.

Ralph was the first in his family to graduate from college and the first to earn a doctoral degree. Life as a professor of mathematics enabled him to travel the world, meet and work with great mathematicians, and nurture upcoming students at all levels. Teaching and research brought him enormous joy, and both were central to what made his many years of service at the U of M so rewarding. This award was established to encourage others in pursuit of similar goals.

Accordingly, the Department of Mathematical Sciences has established the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award, to be given annually to up to two PhD students in Mathematics who have demonstrated excellent progress toward achieving the doctoral degree. It consists of a monetary award of $300 and a certificate of recognition. Eligibility requirements include having passed the Qualifying PhD Exam and a commendable teaching record. Each year, nominees will be invited to give a presentation of their research during Mathematics Research Day. The final decision is made by a jury of department-appointed faculty members.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences is very grateful to Pat Faudree for her generous gift aimed at instilling in the new generation of PhD students in Mathematics at the University of Memphis those very same goals of excellence in research and teaching that defined the professional life of Dr. Ralph Faudree. We hope this award will continue, through the contribution of additional donations, for many, many years to come.

RECIPIENTS : Kamil Popielarz [2015], Ali Dogan [2015], Yury Sokolov [2016], Stephen Smith [2017], Buddjhika Priyasad [2017], Richard Snyder [2018], Sutthirut Charoenphon [2018], Rebekah Herman [2019], Mariusz Żyluk [2019], Stephen Guffey [2020], Marcelo Bongarti [2020] Rasika Mahawattege [2021], Monika [2021], Sana Kazemi[2022], Madhumita Roy[2022], John Ebert[2023], Sovanlal Mondal[2023], Runze Wang[2024], Conner Griffin [2024] .

More details are given below.

The Dr. Cecil Rousseau Award in Mathematics:

This award, in memory of Dr. Cecil C. Rousseau, was established by his former colleagues and friends. Cecil, who passed away on April 10, 2020, left a long and rich legacy to the Department of Mathematics, University of Memphis.

He was a Professor of Mathematics in the Department for almost 50 years. He was a pioneer who was instrumental in establishing research agenda and reputation for the Department and the University. In 2012 he received the Paul Erdős Award from the World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions. His excellence in research was one of the main reasons why Paul Erdős visited the University of Memphis on a regular basis for numerous years. He was one of the very few mathematicians whose Erdős and Ulam numbers were 1. Cecil - a physicist by formal training - was also a problem solver. He was a Coach of the US Mathematics Olympiad Team and a Managing Editor for the Problem Section of the SIAM Review. Cecil's love and enthusiasm for mathematics was boundless. He loved interactions with his students and over the years he provided many of them with special training going well beyond the call of teaching duties. He was a great friend, a scholar, a resourceful and multi-talented person.

The award is given to a promising doctoral student who demonstrated excellent progress toward achieving the doctoral degree, passed the Qualifying PhD Exam and has an excellent teaching record. Nominees will be invited to give a presentation of their research during Mathematics Research Day. The final decision is made by a jury of department-appointed faculty members.

The award consists of a monetary award of $300 and a certificate of recognition.

RECIPIENTS : Priyadashi Dey [2020], Pamela Guerrero [2024]. 

More details are given below.

The Dr. S. P. Wong Award In Statistics:

This award, in memory of Dr. S.P. Wong, is presented each year to up to four graduate students in Statistics . The Dr SP Wong Award in Statistics was established by former students, colleagues and friends of Dr. Wong.

Dr. S.P. Wong was a Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Memphis for 45 years-until his death in 2017. His research and scholarship has been highly recognized, not only within the field of statistics but also in medical sciences. He had a sizable record of very influential publications. In particular, his research publications with the medical community have had great impact and is highly cited. One of his papers received over 3,760 citations.

He was known as a generous, loving and optimistic person. Dr. Wong spent a life dedicated to helping and guiding people, in particular many students, around him. He directed numerous M.S. and PhD. theses. His research and teaching affected many lives during his tenure at the University of Memphis. Many of his students went on to pursue successful professional careers.

Donations to the award fund are welcome and can be made at the  online donation website.

RECIPIENTS From the DMS : Lija Wang [2018], Jeff Richardson [2018], Yunusa Olufadi [2018], Luhang Han [2018], John Appiah Kubi [2019], Robert Aymett [2019] Jonathan McCurdy [2019] Kenneth Passiah [2019], John Appiah kubi [2020], Jonathan McCurdy [2020].

More details are given below.

The Dr. Ralph Faudree Award Recipients

Spring 2024

Congratulations to Runze Wang recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Runze Wang gave the presentation: Pollard’s Theorem in General Abelian Groups.

Congratulations to Conner Griffin, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Conner Griffin gave the presentation: Completing a characterization of relatively piecewise syndetic sets.

Spring 2023

Congratulations to John Ebert recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. John Ebert gave the presentation Structure of a sequence with prescribed zero-sum subsequences. Rank Two p-groups.

Congratulations to Sovanlal Mondal recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Sovanlal Mondal gave the presentation Pointwiese ergodic theorem along sequences with slow growth rate.

Spring 2022

Congratulations to Sana Kazemi recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ms. Kazemi gave the presentation Properties of Special Classes of Sequence Spaces.

Congratulations to Madhumita Roy recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ms. Roy gave the presentation Global attractors for a nonlinear boundary damped wave equation with critical exponents.

Spring 2021

Congratulations to Monika, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ms. Monika gave the presentation Numerical Index.

Congratulations to Rasika Mahawattege, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Mahawatteg gave the presentation Fluid-Structure interaction with visco-elastic (Kelvin-Voigt)-damping: analyticity, spectral properties, uniform stabilization.

Spring 2020

Congratulations to Marcelo Bongarti, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Bongarti gave the presentation: The Singular Thermal Relaxation Limit for the MGT Equation.

Congratulations to Stephen Guffey, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Guffey gave the presentation: Local Null Controllability for a Chemotaxis System of a Bacterial Infection in a Chronic Wound.

 Spring 2019

Congratulations to Mariusz Zyluk, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Zyluk gave the presentation: Boundedness of Maximal Operator in Musielak-Orlicz spaces and some related problems.

Congratulations to Rebekah Herrman, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ms. Herrman gave the presentation: Uniform Bounds for Non-Negativity of the Diffusion Game.

Spring 2018

Congratulations to Sutthirut Charoenphon, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ms. Charoenphon gave the presentation: Vanishing Relaxation Time Dynamics of the Jordan Moore-Gibson-Thompson (JMGT) Equation arising in High Frequency Ultrasound (HFU).

Congratulations to Richard Snyder, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Snyder gave a presentation investigating Highly Linked Tournaments with Large Minimum out-Degree.

Spring 2017

Congratulations to Buddhika Priyasad, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Priyasad gave the presentation Stabilizing the Turbulence of Navier-Stokes Equations in Besov and L_p-based Sobolev Spaces.

Congratulations to Stephen Smith, recipient of the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Mr. Smith gave a presentation: Investigating Zero Forcing in Graphs.

Spring 2016

Congratulations to Yury Sokolov, recipient of the 2015-2016 Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. During Mathematics Research Day, Dr. Sokolov gave a presentation entitled Diameter of a Random Graph.  Also, Yury's PhD dissertation won this year's prestigious Morton Dissertation Award.

Spring 2015

Congratulations to Ali Dogan, recipient of the inaugural Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ali has been an excellent calculus instructor, as well as assisting in the Math Learning Center. Mr. Dogan gave a presentation from graph theory, On the Edge Spectrum of Saturation Number for Paths and Stars.

Congratulations to Kamil Popielarz, recipient of the inaugural Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Kamil has been a stalwart in the Math Learning Center, helping our undergraduates get through their courses. Mr. Popielarz gave a presentation investigating the question, How many triangles can a graph have?

The Dr. Cecil Rousseau Award Recipients

Spring 2024

Congratulations to Pamela Guerrero, recipient of the 2024 Dr. Cecil Rousseau Award. Mr. Conner Griffin gave the presentation:  A Study of the Extended Benjamin Bona Mahony Equation.

Spring 2020

Congratulations to Priyadarshi Dey, recipient of the 2020 Dr. Cecil Rousseau Award. Mr. Priyadarshi gave the presentation: Hermitian projections on some Operator space.

The Dr. S.P. Wong Award in Statistics

Spring 2022

Best student in SAS Programming Class (MATH 4607-6607): Dylan Schwab

Best student in R Programming class (MATH 7607): Md Kaisar Ahmed

Spring 2020

Jonathan McCurdy-  Winner of Best R Presentation: "R Implementation of Gibb's Sampling and other MCMC Methods".

John Appiah Kubi – Winner of Best Presentation on Bayesian statistics: "Bayesian Hierarchical Model Estimation of Drug Trial Snapshots".

Yilun Sun – Winner of Best SAS Presentation: "Why Learn SAS: A Biostatistician's Perspectiver".

Mahbubul Hasan – Winner of Best Presentation on Natural Language Processing: What Makes YouTube Videos go Viral? Emotional Triggers and Shopper's Engagement in Viral Advertising.

Kevin Russell – Winner of Best Presentation on Analyzing Big Data: Estimating Individual Learner Differences via Online Stochastic Gradient Descent in Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

Spring 2019

Kenneth Pasiah, Winner of the Best Use of Simulation: Recent developments in pseudo random number generators (PRNGs) for computer simulations and security applications.

Malle Carrasco-Harris, Biology Department, Winners of the Best Presentation in Application Winner of the Best Use of Simulation: Exploring an alternative in habitat analysis: Resource utilization functions

Helen Long, Communication Sciences, Winner of the Best Use of Simulation: Using GEEs to evaluate the longitudinal vocal development in infants at risk for cerebral palsy

In addition, three students were awarded the Dr. Wong Award in SAS.

Winner of the Dr. Wong Award in SAS, undergraduate: 

• Jonathan McCurdy, Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Winner of the Dr. Wong Award in SAS, graduate: 

• Robert Aymett, Department of Mathematical Sciences.
• John Appiah-Kubi, Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Spring 2018

Winner of the Best Bayesian Application to Big Data

Luhang Han, Department of Mathematical Sciences.
Title: Identifying and clustering stable and dynamic CpG sites via Bayesian Analysis

Winner of the Best Use of Simulation

Yunusa Olufadi, Department of Mathematical Sciences.
Title: On a new statistical procedure to investigate epigenetic dose-response relationship

Winner of the Best Presentation in Big Data Visualization

Seyed Mohammad Hadi Hosseini, Bioinformatics Department.
Title: ggbio visualization toolkits for genomics data

Winner of the Best Presentation in Application

Prabin Shrestha, Biology Department.
Title: Drug re-discovery: an application of R-programming

In addition, two students were awarded the Dr. Wong Award in SAS.

Winner of the Dr. Wong Award in SAS, undergraduate

Jeff Richardson, Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Winner of the Dr. Wong Award in SAS, graduate

Lijia Wang, Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award

Congratulations to Runze Wang, recipient of the 2024 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Sana Kazemi, recipient of the 2023 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Jon McCurdy, recipient of the 2022 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Priyadarshi Dey, recipient of the 2021 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Monika, recipient of the 2020 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Stephen Guffey, recipient of the 2019 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Holly Renaud, recipient of the 2018 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Sutthirut Charoenphon, recipient of the 2017 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Diego Calle-Cadavid, recipient of the 2016 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Congratulations to Ali Dogan, recipient of the 2015 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award.

Other Awards

Congratulations to Alexander Jefferson, a graduate student in Statistics, who was awarded a “Student Success & Innovation Ph.D.” Fellowship. This fellowship is an award made available to The University of Memphis by the State of Tennessee. Congratulations, Alexander!

Congratulations to Noah Molder, a graduate student in Mathematics, who was awarded a Phi Kappa Phi graduate fellowship to pursue his MS degree in Mathematics at The University of Memphis. This prestigious, nationwide fellowship is highly competitive as only 54 fellowships like Noah's were awarded throughout all academic fields. Congratulations, Noah!

Congratulations to Conner Griffin, who won the Graduate Assistant Meritorious Teaching Award. These awards acknowledge the importance of the instructional enterprise in the transmission, creation, and application of advanced knowledge by the university. Two awards are made annually to outstanding graduate teaching assistants (TAs) for their skill in transmitting knowledge in the classroom or laboratory.

Congratulations to Madhumita Roy:  the first-place winner in the 2023 Student Research Forum held on April 5, 2023. The award consists of a plaque and a monetary award! Madhumita received her award within the category :Mathematics and Computer Science. The title of her poster is A suspension bridge-the Mathematics behind.

Internship: Madhumita Roy has been awarded a nationally highly competitive NSF-10-week Summer Internship at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to work with Dr J.Nutaro. The project "will establish a theoretical basis for observed errors in the numerical simulation of radio waves propagation".

Congratulations to Sovanial Mondal:  the first-place winner in the 33nd Annual Student Research Forum for the Math and Computer Sciences category. The judges found this research on Grid method for averages.

Congratulations to Madhumita Roy: the second-place winner in the 33nd Annual Student Research Forum for the Math and Computer Sciences category. The judges found this research on Global attractors for a nonlinear boundary damped wave equation
with critical exponents.

Rasika Mahawattege was awarded a highly competitive NSF-funded MSGI 2021 Summer Internship to work on a research project under the mentorship of Dr. James Nutaro, Oak Ridge National Lab, TN. The project was entitled: "Quantized state simulation of continuous systems". The goal was to obtain higher order quantized state simulation methods for ordinary differential equations. A novel second order method was introduced and proved theoretically by connecting to quantized time simulation. Python was then used in numerical simulations which confirm the theoretical results.

Buddhika Priyasad was the recipient of European Union-funded project TILL DECEMBER 2021. AS OF JANUARY 2022, BUDDHIKA IS A POST DOC AT CHARLES UNIVERSITY, PRAGUE.

Priyadarshi Dey is the recipient of the DMS 2021 Research Award. 

Marcelo Bongarti and Stephen Guffey were awarded two highly competitive NSF funded 2020 Summer Internships.Stephen Guffey at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory working with Dr. James Nutaro on numerical algorithms for PDEs describing Chemotaxis and Marcelo Bongarti working at UCLA with Prof. Andrea Bertozzi on modeling of COVID-19.

Buddhika Priyasad was the recipient of the 2019 Dorothy Arata Academic Award sponsored by the University of Memphis Association of Retirees (UMAR). The award was established to honor the memory of Dr. Arata, a former Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Memphis. It is given to a postdoctoral student for an outstanding University of Memphis dissertation. After his PhD in May 2019, Buddhika was awarded a 3-year PostDoc Position at the Mathematics Institute, University of Graz, Austria, to work on a European Union-funded project.

Marcelo Bongarti and Stephen Guffey were awarded highly competitive NSF- funded MSGI 2019 Summer Internships at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. 

• Guffey's research project, under the mentorship of Dr. Sven Leyffer and Johann Rudi, entitled "Numerical Determination of Optimal Controls for a Bolza Problem for a Chemotactic System" consisted of investigating and finding optimal controls numerically using finite difference schemes. The schemes were implemented in the programming language AMPL, and numeric solution for the PDE system was attempted using Python. Chemotactic systems are systems of strongly coupled nonlinear partial differential equations of parabolic type. Wellposedness and controllability of PDE's describing chemotactic system is the subject of Steven's PhD dissertation. 
• 
  Bongarti's research project, under the mentorship of Dr. Paul Hovland and Dr. Sri Hari Krishna Narayan was entitled "Efficient Quantum Optimal Control Algorithms". The goal of the project was to investigate how one could take advantage of the fact that the quantum evolution operators are unitary in order to optimize the memory usage within quantum optimal control algorithms. The research involved deals with Schrodinger operators and a control of the underlined dynamics. The results obtained will be considered for journal publication.

Congratulations to Yunusa Olufadi, second-place winner in the 32nd Annual Student Research Forum for the Math and Computer Sciences category.
The judges found this research on A Method for Analyzing Multivariate Mixed Endpoints with High-Dimensional Covariates to be remarkable.

Congratulations to Marcelo Bongarti for receiving the 2nd place prize in the Math and Computer Sciences Category at the 31st Annual Student Research Forum.
Marcelo has also won a NSF internship for Summer 2020, working with Andrea Bertozzi at UCLA on modeling the spread of COVID-19.

Congratulations to Budhika Priyasad for receiving the 1st place prize in the Math and Computer Sciences Category at the 30th Annual Student Research Forum.

Congratulations to Sutthirut Charoenphon for receiving the 2nd place prize in the Math and Computer Sciences Category at the 30th Annual Student Research Forum.

Congratulations to Julian Sahasrabudhe whose PhD dissertation, defended in the Spring 2017, has won the Morton Dissertation Award, and was an award recipient in the Math and Computer Sciences Category at the 29th Annual Student Research Forum.

Congratulations to Yury Sokolov whose PhD dissertation, defended in the Spring 2016, has won the Morton Dissertation Award.

Congratulations to Ali Dogan who received the Graduate Assistant Meritorious Teaching Award for the 2015-2016 academic year and was the 28th Annual Student Research Forum 1st place recipient in the Math and Computer Sciences Category