John Ash, a graduate student who came from the physics department, joined the Mathematics Graduate Program at UNM in the Fall 2008 with a regular Teaching Assistant. He is pursuing an interest in pure mathematics.

We awarded him the MCTP-NSF Graduate  Trainee ship for the Spring 2009. John was a Teaching Assistant  for the MCTP Summer 2009 Workshop, and succesfully passed at the PhD level a  qualifying exam in August 2009. He will take the other two qualifying in August 2010. He is working with Professor Michael Nakamaye.

Kendra Lesser received her BS from McGill University, and joined the Mathematics Graduate Program at UNM in the Fall of 2008. She is
interested in Applied Mathematics, and was a participant in the MCTP Summer 2008 Workshop.

For academic year 2008-09, Kendra was awarded an MCTP-NSF Graduate Traineeship,  she concentrated on her courses, and was  the graduate mentor for Joshua Beach. Joshua was a recipient of an MCTP Undergraduate Research Project under the guidance of Professor Lorenz, and he is now pursuing a MS in Statistics at Yale University.

Both  Kendra and Joshua took a course on Stochastic Differential Equations in the Fall of 2008. They met once a week with Professor Lorenz to discuss topics in financial mathematics and presented what they had learned the prior week. Kendra had some prior experience and interest in the subject, hence this was a very good match.

Kendra was a TA for the MCTP Summer 2009 Workshop, and she passed successfully at the PhD level two qualifying exams in August 2009, and she passed the third one also at the PhD level in January 2010. We are very pleased with her progress, however her scientific interests have shifted to financial mathematics, so she will receive her MS from Unviersity of New Mexico in May 2010, and she has already been accepted to pursue a PhD with complete financial support in financial mathematics at Northwestern University and another top university, she is waiting for other universities to make her final decision on where to go next year. Good luck Kendra!!
   

Bea Yu received a BS in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, and a MS in Chemistry from UNM.

Bea joined the Mathematics Graduate Program at UNM in Spring of 2008, and was a participant in the MCTP Summer 2008 Workshop.

Bea was awarded an MCTP-NSF Graduate Traineeship for the year 2008-09. She was offered a job in the Chemistry Department, starting in January 2009, and decided to take that position instead of the NSF Traineeship.

Bea is working on her MS thesis under the direction of Helen Wearing.