Thanks to the Web, the department continues to expand its international connections. For the past several years, several MU students have participated in the TUKLA Internet Seminar in functional analysis.
In June 1999, a group of those researchers traveled to the Heinrech-Fabri Institut in Blauabeurau, Germany, to give presentations at the 1998-99 TUKLA workshop on "Spectral Theory and Asymptotic Behavior of Semigroups." Included were Bill Layton, PhD '99, of the National Security Agency; Ben Mohamed Rhouma, PhD '99, of Georgia Tech; Milena Stanislova, PhD '00, of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Atanas Stefanov, PhD '99, of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Rhouma has written about his experiences.
In other international directions, the department is organizing a joint doctoral exchange program with Kharkov National University, Charles University in Prague and the Université de Franche-Comte in Besancon, France.
MU currently has a group of five students from Kharkov and one student, Roman Vershynin, who received his doctoral degree in 2000. Under the proposed program, MU students would have the option of doing research at any of the three exchange universities
Since the past issue of Critical Points, these students received graduate degrees: PhD, Christina Morian, Jaedong Choi, Bulent Unal, Milena Stanislova, Roman Vershynin; MS, Nora Sprenger, Lawrence Cranor, Diana Hua, Andrew Imm, Theron Peter, Keith Mersman, Jennifer Richter, Terrence Farmer; MA, Lisa Ramsey, Kimberly Brown; MST, Brock Bukowsky.
Xiaochun Li, who received his PhD in May under the direction of Loukas Grafakos, received job offers at UCLA, University of Texas, University of Minnesota, Michigan State and McMaster University. He has accepted a prestigious Hedrick Assistant Professorship at UCLA. The position is named after E.R. Hedrick who taught at MU from 1903-20 before moving to California.
Kudos are due to Roman Shvidkoy, who had papers published in the Journal of Functional Analysis, and in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.
Also, Mikhail Ganichev had a paper in the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications.
The Journal of Functional Analysis recently published a paper by Brian Hollenbeck, BS '95, PhD '00, with Professor Igor Verbitsky on best constants for Riesz projections.
Mark Hoffman won the 2001 Green Chalk Award from the College of Arts and Science. The winners of the 1999-00 Donald K. Anderson Graduate Teaching Awards are Brian Hollenbeck, Diana Hua, Lisa Ramsey, Larry Ellis, Thomas Pyle and David Cramer.
