Newsletter 2025
Department of Mathematics Newsletter
For Students, Friends, and Alumni
Fall 2025 Edition
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Previous Edition
Welcome to the latest edition of the WWU Math Department newsletter! Below, I share some departmental news and some of the many highlights from last year. There is also much to look forward to this coming year. Elsewhere in the newsletter, you will find profiles of students, alumni, and faculty and a message from our recently retired colleague and my predecessor as chair Tjalling Ypma.
Math Department Chair, David Hartenstine
We were very happy to welcome three new faculty members this past year: Carinna Ostrovsky-Snider, Andy Richards, and Andrea Sundberg. Carinna was a math major and Math Fellow here at WWU and also completed our masters program. Andy joined us after teaching for many years at Central Washington University. Andrea is making important contributions to our math education program.
Jeffrey Meier was promoted to the rank of Full Professor. He is on sabbatical this quarter, engaging in research in topology in southern France (and making at least one department chair I can think of just a bit envious). Congratulations once again, Professor Meier!
Two colleagues, both of whom were here when I started at WWU in 2004 (and one of whom hired me), are now emeritus faculty. Eric Kean and Tjalling Ypma are already greatly missed but we are happy for them and hope they are somehow managing to enjoy themselves without seeing us on a regular basis.
Speaking of Tjalling, undoubtedly one of the highlights of the year was his retirement party. Current and retired faculty and staff and administrators from across the university gathered to honor his long service to the department and to the university. A message from him, reflecting on his tenure, is below.
To our alumni, we always love hearing from you or seeing you when you visit campus! You are welcome to drop by anytime or send us a quick note letting us know what you’ve been up to. Seriously, it is always a highlight of my day when I see or hear from former students, and I know my colleagues feel the same way. On April 18, 2026, there will be an alumni reunion event in Bellingham. Plans are still in the works, but we will be reaching out to all of you alumni with more details early in 2026. For now, you can save the date for a late afternoon/early evening event. If you’re thinking of coming, reach out to your math alumni friends and get them to come too! We hope to see many alumni and their families.
March 14, known as π Day, is cause for celebration for some mathematically minded people and it was a fun Friday in Bond Hall this year. We provided many miniature pies for students and faculty and a video documenting the ability (or lack thereof) of faculty and students to recall digits of one of our favorite numbers (in order, which made it a bit harder) was created and shared on social media. Instagram
Another highlight was the public screening of the excellent, thought-provoking documentary “Counted Out”. This film examines the central role of mathematics in modern society and its powerful impact. The screening was attended by math and education students and faculty, local teachers, and other interested members of the community. More details about that event are below.
As usual, the Great Puzzle Hunt brought fun and excitement to campus and online this past April as teams from around the world competed to solve a variety of mind-bending puzzles. Retired professor Millie Johnson is the founder and the director of the Great Puzzle Hunt. She works with a large team including many current and former Western students. The 10th annual (and final) Great Puzzle Hunt will be on April 18, 2026, so mark your calendars. Since this will be the last Great Puzzle Hunt, we can count on Millie to have something extra special planned. But wait, hold on a second, isn’t that the same day as the alumni event? Why yes, it is! If you’re an alum and a puzzle aficionado, you can participate in the Hunt and then cap off the day with the reunion.
Right before graduates lined up for the commencement ceremony in June, the department hosted a casual reception for graduates and their families. This was an opportunity for all of us to congratulate our graduates, while in their caps and gowns, and wish them well with whatever comes next. This was well attended and appreciated. We plan to do that again this coming year.
We had a successful Give Day 2025! Those donations help support student scholarships, student and faculty travel to conferences, bringing visiting mathematicians to campus, and various other departmental activities and needs. We are deeply grateful for all gifts to the department.
I feel very fortunate to work in this department with our faculty and staff, committed to providing an excellent educational experience and supportive environment for our students. I am frequently amazed by the research accomplishments and creative instructional innovations of the faculty and the achievements of our students both inside and outside of the classroom. Looking forward to another eventful and inspiring year.
A Fond Farewell to Tjalling Ypma
After many years of dedicated service to the Mathematics Department, including an extraordinary 28 years as Department Chair, Tjalling Ypma has retired. Colleagues and students alike often remarked that his leadership marked “the end of an era” and celebrated him as “a legend” within our department. His impact on the department and university is immeasurable, and his legacy of mentorship, scholarship, and steady guidance will be felt for years to come.
Below, we share his own farewell message as he reflects on his time with us.
My first day at Western was August 24, 1987. My last day on the payroll was April 1, 2025. Many changes occurred during those 37.5 years, which include over 28 years in which I was the Department Chair (1992 – 2020). The student population grew steadily, as did the number of faculty and academic buildings; the proportion of female students increased dramatically and STEM became an ever more popular field of student study. The impact of technology has been enormous, perhaps best epitomized by the changes in the student class registration process, which was done on paper in face-to-face meetings with staff in the old Carver Gym when I started and is now an online process with minimal direct human contact. Despite these and many other profound changes, certain important fundamentals related to the math department have remained the same or have been enhanced over the years, and it is these aspects of the department that I want to highlight in this brief note.
I was fortunate to become the leader of a department which was already on a very positive trajectory, established by some of my far-sighted predecessors as department Chair. Al Froderberg, Joe Hashisaki, and my immediate predecessor Tom Read, amongst others, set a tone and direction for the department that I had only to build on and that has served us exceptionally well. Amongst the many important things that they initiated was our graduate program, a major shift away from a department focused almost entirely on teaching to one in which scholarship plays a very significant role, and an international perspective that is now reflected in the wide range of accents, ethnicities and cultures represented amongst our faculty and research collaborations. These initiatives have stood us in very good stead over the years; they have served to distinguish us very positively from less highly regarded regional universities which otherwise would be deemed comparable to us, and they will continue to be important if we are to continue to thrive in the challenging years ahead.
One of my most important duties as Chair was to support our faculty as best I could. The quality of our programs is directly linked to the quality of the faculty who develop and deliver them, so selecting and nurturing outstanding faculty has always been crucial. While there has been a significant shift in the expectations of, and by, tenured faculty regarding the balance between teaching and scholarship, the expectation of excellence in teaching has never been lost. A serious commitment to effective teaching remains essential, not only for those whose primary task is teaching students in beginning math classes but also for those scholars who teach the more advanced and graduate classes. More generally, a serious commitment to helping our students succeed is a central trait in our faculty.
Another critical factor related to our faculty has been the level of collegiality within the department. While we are no longer the small tightly knit community that existed when I started, when many faculty and their families did summer hiking and river trips together, there is still a high level of mutual support and respect between faculty. This collegiality extends to senior faculty recognizing the critical contributions made by contract faculty who teach the beginning level courses. I would not have remained Chair for so long if we had the bitter factional splits I have observed between faculty in other academic units.
Along with excellence in teaching goes a need for continued curricular and pedagogical developments and other ways to support student success. The Math Center, which first became operational in Fall 1992, was an early example of such efforts, as were the major curricular changes in the calculus and linear algebra sequences implemented at that time. More recent developments include significant revisions of the curriculum and pedagogy used in our beginning math classes, improvements in the math placement process, and the establishment of a major in statistics. Our programs have been thoughtfully responsive to changes in our environment, and it is to be hoped that we can continue to offer students the same richness and relevance they have come to expect.
The high level of success for students in our majors has been another source of justifiable pride over the years. Some of this is already evident when our students are still in our programs, by way of student participation in a range of advanced projects, professional meetings, and contests. Our graduates too have an impressive record of professional success, including remarkably many who go on to complete doctorates in related fields. Much of this student success is related to the success of our faculty as active scholars in their fields; our research output has often been comparable in quantity and quality to that of highly respected academic institutions with strong doctoral programs.
I look back on my years as a member of the math faculty and department Chair with a great deal of satisfaction, pride in what I did and the legacy I leave behind, and deep appreciation for the opportunities Western gave me. I will let others judge the quality of my teaching, but I established a respectable record of scholarship (my most frequently cited work is nudging towards the 1500 citations mark), and I surprised myself by being a remarkably effective administrator. I did not set out to become the department Chair, I had zero ambitions to go beyond that, and I did not expect to serve for over 28 years, but I thoroughly enjoyed most (definitely not all) of the many and widely varied challenges that came with that role. I was never bored, and I am very grateful to have had so many opportunities to reach both my own potential and to help others, both faculty and students, achieve theirs. Not least, the many years in an administrative role helped me recognize the critical role played by the departmental staff and the administration in making our programs successful. While my departure may mark the end of an era, I leave behind a thriving department that is in good shape and good hands, and I am confident it will continue to flourish in the years ahead.
JSM
Mayla Ward ('25) attended the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Portland, Oregon, in August 2024 to present her research with Dr. Kimihiro Noguchi on an advanced topic in mathematical statistics. Her presentation, titled "Asymptotic Properties of the Square Root Transformation of the Gamma Distribution", was based on her publication featured in the Department of Mathematics Newsletter last year. Her flawless 10-minute oral presentation on the research as an undergraduate student impressed the audience and session chair as oral presentations at JSM are almost always given by PhD students, professors, and researchers with a graduate degree. Mayla also handled the Q&A session after her oral presentation very well, and the session chair commended her performance before she introduced the next speaker. Lastly, Mayla gave another excellent oral presentation on the same topic at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle in January 2025.
NCUWM
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln annually hosts the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Wisdom in Mathematics (formerly the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics). Each year, we are able to send a group of mathematics majors to attend and present their research at this conference. The event focuses on supporting undergraduate students who are underrepresented in mathematics by connecting them with role models, sharing pathways into research, and fostering collaboration and professional growth.
"This was my first experience at a conference like this, and I found it really eye opening in a lot of ways. First of all, it was really nice to be in a room with so many of my peers in exactly the situation that I am. We have a lot of similar experiences, and I made several connections and friendships that I expect to continue past this one conference. I also had the opportunity to talk to some graduate students, and even one that is a part of a program that I am going to apply to. This was so helpful because I have been feeling overwhelmed by everything that goes into graduate school, so it was inspiring to hear that people actually do it and grounding to get some actual advice on how to get there. I also really enjoyed all the presentations I got to see, most of them were unfamiliar fields to me so it was a cool introduction to things I might want to study in the future." - Wes Schirmer, Math Major
“Super packed schedule conference - I absolutely love it! There are 250 students here from 113 schools. WWU got a shoutout for being the furthest north.”
Peach Auengpradijporn
Mathematics Major
JMM
Sydney Campbell ('25) presented her research poster titled "Effects of the Linear Trend Term in the Social Media-Based Monthly Park Visitation Model" at the Joint Mathematics Meeting (JMM) in Seattle in January 2025. Sydney's work, which was completed with Dr. Kimihiro Noguchi, discusses both positive and negative effects of including the linear trend term when forecasting monthly national park visitation using the number of social media posts related to the national park as data. Her results revealed that the linear trend term contributes to an improved forecasting performance when full monthly on-site park visitation data are available, but it negatively affects the forecating performance when only sporadic on-site montly park visitation data are available. Her research poster illustrated these cases with different national parks including Joshua Tree National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and Haleakala National Park. Sydney's presentation was favorably received by the poster judges and other conference participants.
RAW Stats officers
RAW Stats Club
The RAW Stats club, a student club for anyone who is interested in statistics had another great year last year. The club officers Sydney Campbell ('25) and Parker Perry ('25), as well as the club advisor Dr. Kimihiro Noguchi, organized a few events every quarter including a grad school info session, a job interview Q&A session, a major info session, a student research presentation event, and a colloquium presentation by inviting a guest speaker from Washington State University. However, the most successful events were Stats Trivia events, where Sydney, Parker, and Dr. Noguchi asked the participants more than twenty questions on various topics in probability and statistical theory, set theory, history of statistics, and some random facts about the statistics faculty in the Math Department. The students and faculty who participated in the Stats Trivia events thoroughly enjoyed answering these challenging questions.
Counted Out
What does it mean to be a “math person”? How is mathematics education connected to the movement for civil rights? The new documentary, Counted Out, directed by Vicki Abeles, investigates how mathematics impacts all of us daily, from the people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, and the jobs we’re hired for. Whether we can speak the language of math is a critical determinant of social and economic power.
On April 16, a group of students, teachers, faculty, and community members attended a free screening of the movie sponsored by SMATE and the Math department. Following the movie, panelists shared their thoughts, answered questions from the audience, and engaged in a discussion about how we can make math more accessible to everyone. Thanks to all who attended the screening. If you weren’t able to attend, please see Counted Out when it becomes widely available!
STEM Student Sanctuary
The first ever STEM Student Sanctuary event was a hit! We served over 100 students / faculty from programs all over the College of Science and Engineering. We had many people express how much they loved and appreciated the event, and it was so lovely to look around the room and see our wonderful, hardworking students and faculty enjoy some self-care activities and community. This couldn't have happened without the support of the amazing CSE departments, so this event is a group success.
Maggie Minogue
Meet math major and graduating senior Maggie Minogue!
For her Honors Capstone project, Maggie produced a podcast about how current and future teachers are approaching critical pedagogy! The podcast includes interviews from professors and students across campus. Guests explain what critical pedagogy means to them, strategies for building an inclusive and accessible classroom, and where they see education going in the future. Maggie plans to become a high school math teacher and has been accepted into WWU’s Masters in Teaching program. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Maggie!
Kevin Fournier
Outstanding Graduate, Kevin Fournier, completed the thesis option for the MS in mathematics, something that is very rarely attempted (there has been one other student in the past 20-plus years who completed a thesis in mathematics). A thesis requires original mathematics, which is very challenging and is not usually achieved until PhD study. Kevin demonstrated the ability to work independently on difficult material and has proven existence of solutions to a partial differential equation in a setting where it had never before been considered. Here he shares his thesis experience (an option he highly recommends).
Coming up to Western to do a master’s degree was (and still is) a big deal for me, and it will go down as one of the best times of my life. It was a fruitful period for me both academically and professionally and working on a thesis was a huge part of that. Having enrolled into a graduate program as an older student (mid 40’s) I knew this would most likely be my last trip through academia as a student and I wanted to create something that I could call my own. That would be to write a master’s thesis in Mathematics. I just needed a topic and an advisor, both of which serendipity would provide.
A question I like to ask people who study Mathematics is “what is your favorite area of Math, what part do you like to explore the most?”. I find it fascinating the variety of areas people enjoy wandering around in and the different styles of thought they practice. Some people think more pictorially and are drawn to Geometric or Topological subjects or others tend to think in terms of axioms and Algebraic structures, while some prefer the intricacies of the epsilons and deltas of Analysis. It really illuminates how vast and wonderful Mathematics is and the wide variety of minds that explore it. As for myself, I am drawn to manifolds and the little tensors that live in them. It is fun to think about what it would look like to wander around inside one of these spaces. So, naturally Differential Geometry is something I find fascinating. When I came up to Western to work on my masters, my hope was to write a thesis that would involve Differential Geometry somehow. Luckily for me, I met Professor Steve McDowall, who posed a problem that fit the bill big time.
I met Steve through an email he sent inquiring about my plans for the future, and instead of responding by email, I just swung by his office in person, and we got to talking about doing a thesis. He gave me a paper he wrote about an inverse problem on a Riemannian manifold with boundary and he suggested I look into generalizing the result to a Finsler manifold. A Finsler manifold? What is that? I asked myself. So, I went and did a little reading to find out what it was about and what inverse problems entail and decided the project looked good. Let’s do it. I returned a few days later and asked Steve to be my advisor and we got started.
It was VERY slow going for the first year. I had no clue how inverse problems work, and absolutely no clue what Finsler Geometry was. Come to find out, the first part of solving an inverse problem is to solve what is called “the forward problem”. The forward problem in this case, was to show that a differential equation called the “stationary linear transport equation” actually has a solution on the manifold you are playing in. Since this requires a deep knowledge about the geometry involved, I spent a big portion of the first year reading about Finsler manifolds. By the Summer of 2024, I had not made much progress. I was quite depressed about it and doubted a thesis would emerge from my efforts.
During that Summer, I focused much of my effort on Steves paper, taking apart the forward problem so as to understand his arguments, but did not get too far into the inverse problem portion. By the end of that Summer, I knew that the most I would probably get through was the forward problem, but that would be enough. I just had to find the appropriate Geometric framework in order to show that the transport equation has a solution in the Finsler setting. Coming into the Fall, I understood Steves paper, and had a half-baked argument for the forward problem, but it was hokey and felt ad hoc.
Nonplussed about my results of the previous Summer, I redoubled my effort to understand Finsler Geometry at the tangent bundle level. Early on in my research, I realized that my problem was taking place at the level of the tangent bundle, and that Finsler Geometry is actually a tangent bundle Geometry. Things fit so well. I just could not get it to work for me. Then sometime in the Fall of 2024, or maybe during that Winter break, I can’t remember, it all came into focus. The tangent bundle to a Finsler manifold has a natural symplectic structure! That was exactly what I needed to do the integration involved in solving the forward problem. It was in front of me the whole time, wow. I guess that is one lesson I learned about research, it goes the way it is going to go and this is how it went.
All the pieces were now there and after some modifications to Steves work in the Riemannian setting, for example defining incoming and outgoing vectors on the boundary without the use of a metric, I spent the end of the Winter and much of Spring writing the actual document. The final boss was the dreaded defense. This was a nerve-wracking experience, but once I saw all my friends, students, and faculty, it all just flowed out of me, and I think I put on a pretty good show.
So, was it worth it? Yes, one hundred percent. I am so thankful for all the support of my friends at Western, my beautiful wife, and especially a top-notch advisor like Steve. In the end, I came out of the Western graduate program better than when I came in and am so glad I attended school there. I hope to have made relationships that will last a lifetime. A lesson that sticks out to me is having the confidence to go down rabbit holes and find where they go. One thing I did not expect was how to deal with paths that I did not know whether it was a waste of my time or not and the only way to find out was to follow the trail to its terminus. And on a time limit, this was stressful, but you learn to handle it. In the end, I am proud of my work and am glad I did it.
I want to finish by saying thank you to the faculty, my advisor Steve, my friends, and not least of all, everyone in the department office who kept me good and sugared up.
Nolan Mickenham
WWU Mathematics senior Nolan Mickenham placed second in the Spring 2025 Undergraduate Statistics Class Project Competition, an international mathematics competition for undergraduate students.
Mickenham’s paper, “Detecting Fraud in Mobile Money Transfers,” took second place in the introductory statistics category and focused on how large changes in a bank account’s balance can act as an indicator of fraudulent behavior. Ultimately, Mickenham’s analysis demonstrated large negative changes in a sender’s original balance are a strong and statistically significant indicator of fraud in mobile money transfers.
“Placing second in a competition like this made me feel really great about the skills I have developed throughout college,” Mickenham said. “I’m proud of the work I put in and that other people were able to see and appreciate my work as well.”
Mickenham completed his project as a part of MATH 341: Probability and Statistical Inference under Professor of Mathematics Kimihiro Noguchi. Noguchi picked Mickenham’s paper from his peers as the best candidate to represent his class in the competition.
“The way Nolan presented and described his statistical results was flawless,” Noguchi said. “It is usually a big challenge for students taking MATH 341 — the first probability/statistics course — to communicate sophisticated mathematical and statistical ideas concisely and accurately with others through writing, but Nolan was able to do so on his own.”
Laina Mercer
I was a Math major and Chemistry minor and WWU.
I completed my BS in Mathematics in 2008 at WWU. I later completed my MS in Biostatistics (2011) and PhD in Statistics (2016) at UW.
I am currently a Director of Statistical Science & Senior Staff Scientist at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Specifically, I work on vaccine development and HIV and STI prevention in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division.
I moved to this new role at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in January 2025. Previously, I was a Principal Statistician at PATH. While at PATH, I’m particularly proud of my involvement with the development of novel oral polio vaccines.
When thinking about future careers, my advice to current students is to seek out opportunities such as research, internships, teaching, or tutoring within their field of study. These experiences help you understand the variety of roles available and how they connect with others. The work environment and colleagues play a huge role in job satisfaction. I also recommend reaching out to professionals in roles you’re interested in to learn what those jobs are really like.
I transferred from Skagit Valley College to WWU in 2006. One of my fondest memories is how supportive the Math Department faculty and staff were as I adjusted to the University. I also met my future husband in Dr. Hartenstine’s MATH 224 – a fact I credit for my unusual fondness for polar coordinates.
In my free time I can generally be found either biking around Seattle, swimming, playing with my dog, or reading with a cat in my lap.
Berit Manser
I majored in Applied Mathematics with a minor in Geographic Information Science and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2024.
I’m currently an analyst at an environmental consulting company called TRC. I primarily work on demand side management (DSM) programs with utilities in the central region, analyzing and forecasting energy usage, mapping utility service territories, and providing insights on energy efficiency and demand management program strategies. Outside of that primary role, I have assisted in siting projects for solar farms, data centers, and nuclear power plants.
My advice to current students is to explore classes outside of your degree that interest you, when you can. I always knew a math degree was the right path for me but the energy science and GIS courses helped me narrow down what field I enjoyed applying those analytical skills to the most.
As well as asking graduate students and professors about their experience finding the right career path for them.
One of my fondest memories from my time at Western was my first day in the GIS program. As a math major, I loved realizing how many doors that foundation could open, and that first GIS class was where I got to open one and see the tangible, visual impacts that the analytical methods I was learning could be applied to.
Nick Henscheid
Undergraduate: Applied Math (BS, 2010, WWU)
Graduate: Mathematics (MS, 2012, WWU)
Doctorate: Applied Math (PhD, 2018, University of Arizona)
Current Role: Senior Quantitative Medicine Scientist, Critical Path Institute
My recent publications focus on applying machine learning to image analysis and drug development, with several more projects underway for release in early 2026.
My time studying mathematics, especially theory and proof, gave me a strong foundation in critical thinking that has been invaluable across my career. Still, some of the most meaningful steps toward my professional path came from internships and conferences, which offered a window into the “real world” of scientific research and helped bridge the gap between education and career.
Some of my favorite memories from WWU include not only my math courses but also learning to climb at the rec center. After 13 years in Tucson, I recently moved back to Seattle and am excited to be in the Pacific Northwest again.
Triple Header Weekend – Puzzles, Pursuit, and Party!
Three fun WWU Math Department events take place on the weekend of April 18, 2026:
The WWU Great Puzzle Hunt returns for the tenth year on Saturday, April 18, 2026. As a FUN, POPULAR, full-day, team puzzle solving event, where teams compete in solving a variety of puzzles either virtually or in-person on WWU campus, anyone from anywhere in the world may participate. It’s FREE, with FOOD, MUSIC, PRIZES, & MORE! COSTUMES ARE ENCOURAGED.
The WWU GPH Treasure Hunt makes its first appearance on campus on April 18-20, 2026. FREE, fun for individuals, teams, and families. An outdoor adventure, requiring walking at least 1 mile around WWU campus on varied terrain (grass & gravel paths, paved walkways) using compass and map orienteering. Collect clues & respond to questions at checkpoints with the ultimate goal to collect a memento from the treasure chest hidden somewhere on campus!
Math Alumni Reunion on Saturday evening, April 18, 2026, after the WWU Great Puzzle Hunt! More details coming soon. Join your fellow alums and faculty, mingle, eat, drink, share memories, and perhaps play with a few brain twisters!
A Day at the WWU Great Puzzle Hunt or What Might an In-Person Participant Experience?
Arriving at Red Square, you will hear music and see CROWDS of people checking in, some dressed in team costumes. Once you have checked in, and affixed your wristband, you head over to the refreshment area and join other teams excited to get started. After introductory announcements and a rules refresher, you’ll hear the countdown to START when the crowd scatters! As a registered team, you are connected to the Great Puzzle Hunt Game platform, whose screen appears on your smart phone or laptop. Choose the Puzzle Station location for your first puzzle (Humanities, SMATE, Arntsen, PAC).
CLUE 1: Each Puzzle Station location hints at the subject area of that puzzle.
CLUE 2: Choose a versatile team (broad interests). Each team member has perhaps different strengths to share.
CLUE 3: You are encouraged to use the internet as an aid and since you remembered to check the Great Puzzle Hunt website prior to the event, you know
CLUE 4: how the scoring works and you brought your gear from What should I have on hand? (e.g., scissors, tape, holepunch, graph paper, etc.) The list changes each year. OK, grab a banana, a muffin, and coffee/tea/cocoa and let’s go!
CLUE 5: See sample puzzles on the Great Puzzle Hunt website.
Teams can solve puzzles in any order. Suppose your first puzzle is at the Humanities Puzzle Station where you might need to use legal moves of chess pieces on a board to spell names of famous authors whose books include a chess theme. How many hints did you need for this puzzle? Yes, there are hints – See scoring. Did you solve it? If not, no worries, you will be given the codewords. Save them! You need them for the META-PUZZLE! Next, your team might travel to the PAC Puzzle Station to find a puzzle built around the names of 1920s silent movie stars to decode words of wisdom from the Jazz Age. Whew. Those were challenging puzzles! It’s time to take a break and grab some refreshments back in Red Square!
Your team is refreshed and rested and heads to the SMATE Puzzle Station where you might be making bank shots on a graph paper pool table to produce a geometric path that leads you to discover interesting history about professional pool. Now head over to the Arntzen Puzzle Station where you might need to learn about Econ! In order to solve this puzzle, you need to match flags to various countries and advance on a boardwalk based on making strategic trades of lumber, gold, wheat, and oil. Remember, the internet is your friend!
Finally, go to any Puzzle Station and pick up the META-PUZZLE. This puzzle requires you to connect the four main puzzles. Luckily, you saved all the code words found throughout the day. You will need them!
The game platform has allowed you to follow your progress as you go. You see that other teams struggled with some puzzles that maybe your team solved. On the other hand, you see teams that solved puzzles that your team found difficult or just couldn’t figure out. At this point, everyone converges on Red Square to compare notes, see the leaderboard, and watch the awards ceremony (there are fun prizes for top scoring teams, best team names, and best team costumes!). Kudos if you tried all the puzzles and had fun with friends!
The Great Puzzle Hunt Mission
So, why The WWU Great Puzzle Hunt? Other than a fun day of puzzling and problem solving with friends, it aims to accomplish something more, best described by our mission statement:
Our goal is to mobilize minds, highlight connections between different fields, and break down imagined barriers to STEM fields by building puzzles that require versatility, persistence, patience, and teamwork to solve. While it is at its core a competitive event, we aim to make it fun and accessible to everyone. We support critical thinking, teamwork, technology, and encourage inclusion.
Thanks to sponsors, the WWU Great Puzzle Hunt is FREE, but donations are gratefully accepted to keep the event accessible to all. You can also support the Hunt by purchasing apparel with the beautiful annual design (coming January 2026 to website). There is a tremendous amount of time and love that goes into making this event happen. Millie Johnson, event Director, could not run this event without the support of the Department of Mathematics, CSE, and her wonderful WWU Alumni team who work throughout the year to make the GPH better: graphics designer Wendy Aguilar; developers Noah Strong, Richard Golding, and Raiden van Bronkhorst; co-puzzler Zac Pontrantolfi; and major supporter and volunteer lead Kim Ragsdale. Additionally, Millie would like to thank the Campus Associated Student Great Puzzle Hunt Club, the WWU Associated Students, and sponsors listed on the event webpage.
Got a team? Want to volunteer? Got questions? Contact: Millie@wwu.edu
Save the Date: Saturday, April 18, 2026
The WWU Treasure Hunt brought to you by the WWU Great Puzzle Hunt. What to expect?
- What? FREE, fun outdoor adventure, requiring walking at least 1 mile around WWU campus on varied terrain (grass & gravel paths, paved walkways) using compass and map orienteering. Collect clues & respond to questions at checkpoints with the ultimate goal to collect a memento from the treasure chest hidden somewhere on campus!
- How? Registered players will receive the Official Treasure Hunt Map and Secret Starting Location.
- When? Open April 19, 2026, 7:00 AM to April 20, 2026, 8:00 PM. GPH finishers gain early access to the Treasure Hunt on April 18, 2026.
- Where? In-Person Only. On the beautiful WWU campus in Bellingham, WA.
- Who? Registered individuals, teams, families. Open to everyone! However, each team with participant(s) under age 14 must include at least one registered adult team member to accompany minor(s) at all times.
FREE Registration opens January 2026
More details coming soon at GreatPuzzleHunt.com
Got questions? Contact: Millie@wwu.edu
Event organization:
In 2024, Prof. Smit Vega Garcia co-organized the “AWM STEM Symposia” at the SACNAS yearly NDISTEM Conference. SACNAS stands for “Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science,” and AWM stands for “Association for Women in Mathematics.” This section served to reinforce collaborations between these groups of scientists.
One of the speakers was Maia Richards-Dinger, who got a master’s with us in the Math department and is now an Applied Math PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Prof. Smit Vega Garcia co-organized the conference “Geometry of Measures and Free Boundary Regularity: A conference in honor of Tatiana Toro,” which took place in 2024 at the University of Washington visit the website here. Together with her co-organizers, they were awarded an NSF grant, DMS 2403698, for $50,000, to fund this conference. The meeting featured 4 mini-courses and 34 talks.
Still in 2024, she co-organized (with Mark Allen) the special session “Lower dimensional free boundary problems” in the “Free Boundary Problems: Theory and Applications” conference. This conference took place in Brazil.
In 2025, Prof. Smit Vega Garcia co-organized the special session “Harmonic Analysis, PDEs & Differential Geometry” at the 2025 Latinx in the Mathematical Sciences Conference (LatMath).
Research papers:
In the 2024-2025 academic year, she published two papers:
- S. Jeon, A. Petrosyan & M. Smit Vega Garcia, Almost minimizers for the thin obstacle problem with variable coefficients, Interfaces Free Bound. 26 (2024), no 3.
- M. Smit Vega Garcia, Almgren-type monotonicity formulas, Matematica Contemp. Vol 61, 2024.
Prof. Smit Vega Garcia also submitted the paper “Fractional Parabolic Theory as a High-Dimensional Limit of Fractional Elliptic Theory,” by B. Davey & M. Smit Vega Garcia, arXiv:2503.13757
Selected talks:
In the 2024-2025 academic year, Prof. Smit Vega Garcia gave research talks at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, at the conference “Regularity Theory for Free Boundary and Geometric Variational Problems V,” which took place in Italy, the conference “PDEs in Tenerife: from theory to applications,” which took place at the Universidad de La Laguna, in Spain, and at the “Math for All” conference, which took place at Oregon State University.
She also gave two talks at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. Many Western faculty/students/alumni were at the conference and had a lovely lunch together.
NSF Award:
In 2024, Prof. Smit Vega Garcia received an NSF grant, called “Topics in Free Boundary Problems.” This grant will support her research from 09/01/2024 - 08/31/2027.
Panel:
She was a panelist at the panel “Graduate School: training to be a research mathematician” at the 2025 Latinx in the Mathematical Sciences Conference (LatMath).
Mini-courses:
Prof. Smit Vega Garcia gave a four-day minicourse called “Free boundary problems” at the conference “Analysis and PDE in Montana.”
She also gave a three-day minicourse called “Introduction to free boundary problems” at the conference “Geometry of Measures and Free Boundary Regularity: A conference in honor of Tatiana Toro.”
Other:
In 2025, Prof. Smit Vega Garcia acted as an NSF reviewer and panelist for two panels. In 2024, she was also on the NSF Committee of visitors for Math. This committee provides NSF with external expert judgments in assessing the quality and integrity of program operations, and in program-level technical and managerial matters pertaining to proposal decisions. It takes place every 4 years.
Prof. Smit Vega Garcia is in the Editorial Board of the journal “Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society,” and the journal “Analysis and Mathematical Physics,” and she is an Associate Editor of the Problems Section of “Mathematics Magazine.”
Associate Professor Rebecca Borowski, PhD, was featured in an Innovative Teaching Showcase last year. Below, she writes about her approach to building relationships and fostering belonging in math education.
Modeling and Building Relationships for Belonging in Math Education
As a lifelong educator, my number one goal is building positive relationships with students. When students feel welcome, safe, and seen in my classroom, they are more likely to share their thinking and reasoning with me, be vulnerable and share what they don’t understand, and take risks in their work. They are also more likely to discuss and debate complicated situations with nuance. I’ve often heard critics of this approach say that empathy is the enemy of rigor, but I completely disagree–I’ve found that empathy supports rigor. When I push students, when I challenge them, they are more likely to engage with the challenge and more likely to succeed, because they know my support is behind them.
Establish open (and honest) lines of communication and make it easy for students to engage in them.
One of the most impactful things we can do to create welcoming spaces in our classrooms is to make it easy for students to communicate with us. Providing office hours is one way we can make ourselves accessible to students; however, students may face a variety of barriers which prevent them from attending office hours. Email is also an effective form of communication, yet explaining complicated concepts via written communication can be difficult. I have found that providing an opportunity to check-in, via student name tents, has opened an accessible, easy to implement channel of communication between my students and me.
Student Name Tents
I use a special name tent (adapted from Sara Van Der Werf) with students all quarter long. On the outside of the name tent, students write their name. The inside of the name tent includes a form with space for a student comment and the teacher’s response for each of five days. At the end of every class, students are required to write something in the name tent, and I always reply. At the beginning of the next class, they pick up their name tent and read my response. Logistically, the name tents help me keep track of attendance. They also give students an opportunity to inform me of upcoming absences or the need for an office hours visit. Often, a student will share that they are having trouble understanding a particular concept, which allows me to reach out with specific resources or supports that might be helpful. These informal checks of student understanding (or at least their own perception of their understanding) help me plan for future class periods.
Beyond the benefit for reflective practice and improved instruction, I have found the name tent helps me build strong relationships with students. They will often give me a song recommendation or tell me something exciting that has happened in their life lately. They’ll give me riddles to solve or ask me what my favorite animal is. Student athletes will let me know when games/matches/meets are coming up, and they’ll keep me posted on their teams’ progress. When I first implemented them, I was concerned students would find the name tents juvenile. Instead, they quickly became a favorite element of my teaching practice. Students enjoy the ongoing dialogue, and I genuinely enjoy reading and responding to the comments after each class period. It helps me get to know students beyond how they perform in my courses. I have had many students share that they use this name tent with their own students in their future practicums, internships, and eventual teaching jobs.
Sometimes students will ask me for advice in a name tent. “What do you do when you’re having trouble finding motivation?” “Do you have any advice for helping me manage my time?” Occasionally, students will share that they are going through a particularly difficult time. Since the onset of the pandemic, I have been particularly aware of the many ups and downs life can bring. Our students are adults, but many of them are still in the early years of their adulthood. If they are going to be successful in their future careers, they need to learn strategies for weathering challenging times, yet they should not have to sacrifice their mental, emotional, or physical wellbeing for the sake of their academic or career success. Providing an open channel of communication allows me to carefully consider how to approach crucial conversations (for example, a discussion about chronic absences) in a way that is meant to support students rather than chastise them. I do not intend to suggest that I can solve all of the students' problems–I cannot. But the name tents make me more aware of the various challenges students face and helps me connect students to resources and support networks that may be able to support them in ways I am not able to.
Provide access to support networks.
The challenges our students face can be vast and overwhelming. The death of a family member, suicidality, depression, learning to manage a disability, food and housing insecurity–these are just some of the challenges students have shared with me over the years. I am not a mental health professional, nor can I provide monetary or structural support for these issues. Yet I do know that WWU has many services which can provide support in ways I cannot. I have found that students are often unaware of the supports that are available to them as students; and even if students are aware that there is support, they sometimes lack the energy or executive function to find out how to access it.
I keep an updated page of “Student Support Systems” in Canvas for every course I teach. Every time I receive an email about a resource, I add it to the list. At least once a year, I check to make sure all the links and contact information is correct. Students know that if they are dealing with a challenge, there is likely to be information about support for that challenge on that page. Further, if a student shares something in a name tent that indicates a need for a specific type of support, I can reach out to them directly and share that information.
Occasionally, open lines of communication will make me aware of a need that is not yet being met. After a couple of years of teaching at WWU, I’d had several trans/nonbinary students share that they were unsure about whether they could be open about their gender identity and still be a teacher. Some of those students went on to change their major, worried that they would face consequences or insurmountable challenges if they chose to express their gender identity while teaching young people in schools. While I understood these students’ decisions, I was saddened and deeply troubled by this issue. Many children identify as queer, including those who are trans/nonbinary, and it is important that children of all ages and all gender identities have access to queer role models, including transgender teachers.
After sharing my concerns with a couple of colleagues, including folks from LGBTQ+ Western, I connected with a group of motivated queer education students and supported them as they began a new student club, Out in Education. Since their start in January of 2024, the students of Out in Education have shared handouts with advice for instructors and presented sessions on affirming pronoun use. They have created care packages for middle and high school students and distributed them to queer-straight alliance clubs at local schools. They have regular meetings and have hosted guest speakers, movie nights, and lesson plan sharing sessions. More importantly, these queer students, who will be future K-12 teachers, now have a network of other queer future teachers. They can share their questions, challenges, wonderings, and support with each other. I am continually amazed by the resilience, kindness, empathy, strength, and talent of these students, and it is an honor to be their faculty advisor.
Around the same time Out in Education was getting started, another student club was formed. Educators of Color also has regular meetings and provides engagement, support, professional development, and networking for education students. They are “motivated by an unwavering commitment to equity, diversity, and dismantling systems of oppression in education…and are committed to working to cultivate a community that advocates for inclusivity, embraces diversity, and continually strives for excellence in education” (from Western Involvement Network). While I am not an advisor for EOC, I have noticed that many of their programs have connections to what I am teaching in my courses. I try to share their resources and advertise their upcoming events as often as I can.
I also provide small tutorials on a variety of technological tools via my Canvas page. There are resources, such as Pronoun Customization of Online Services, which show students how to change their Canvas and Zoom settings to display their pronouns, how to optimize Zoom to hide self-view (see Hide My Video) if it is distracting to look at yourself during meetings, and how to update your Canvas notification settings so you’re sure to get important announcements from instructors but no emails about updates you’re uninterested in (such as a notification every time your instructor adds something to a Canvas module).
WWU Scholars Week Presentations of Faculty/Student Group Collaborations in May 2025
At the WWU Scholars Week Faculty/Student Group Collaborations event in May 2025, two groups of Math/Stats students each gave a 15-minute oral presentation on their research with their mentor, Dr. Kimihiro Noguchi. The first group of students (Cosette Clinton (senior) and McKenna Morgan ('25)) discussed a new modification of the odds ratio confidence interval, which was shown to work better for a wider range of odds ratio values than some of the most popular confidence intervals of this kind. Their results suggest that the proposed confidence interval can be used to accurately assess the effect of certain disorders and new treatments in clinical trials and psychology. Cosette is also planning to present the research at the upcoming Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) in Washington, D.C. in January 2026. The second group of students (Sydney Campbell ('25) and Parker Perry ('25)) presented social media-based forecasting of monthly national park visitation. The presentation was an extension of the one that Sydney gave at JMM in January 2025 and was featured in a recent Western Today news article which can be viewed by clicking here.
On Aug 9-10, 2025, I competed in the USATF Masters Combined National Championships, Charlottesville, VA.
This was the very first year that the world governing body (World Masters Athletics - WMA) acknowledged world records for Masters Women's Decathlon.
This is a really big deal because some USA Masters women have been doing the Decathlon since the 1980's. Since 2006 Women's decathlon was recognized in the USA, but it took until 2025 to be recognized at the World Level.
I did my first Decathlon in 2009 in Shoreline, WA - that set the USA record for W45-49. In 2022 I set the USA record for W60-64, and that score was the world lead for the past 3 years. A world lead is not an official world record since it does not have the official WMA stamp of approval.
This Decathlon in 2025 was my 7th ever, and it is officially recognized as a World Record for W65-69.
Beyond the personal recognition, I am most excited to see Women's Decathlon getting more attention generally. In 2024 and 2025, a brave and frustrated group of Open Women organized their own first ever World Decathlon Champs, in Geneva, Ohio. We are all working to get the W-Decathlon into the Olympics...it is about time!!
Decathlon events
Day 1: 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400m
Day 2: High hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, 1500m
Here is the link to the meet website
2025 USA National Masters Outdoor Combined Events Championships – USATF Masters
Here is the long list of Women's Masters WR's - Decathlon is on page 8.
World Records - World Masters Athletics
Link for the Open women's world champs 2025
This past year, we've welcomed three new faculty members to the department: Andy Richards, recent WWU graduate Carinna Ostrovsky-Snider, and Andrea Sundberg.
We asked Andy to introduce and share a bit about himself:
Where are you from?
I moved around a lot but spent the majority of my life in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington).
What is your educational background?
I have both my undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Oregon. Bachelor's in Mathematics and Master's Degree in Math Education.
After graduating, I stayed in Oregon and spent four years as a high school math teacher and then switched to teaching at two-year colleges for four years. In 2015, my family and I moved to Washington where I taught at Central Washington University for nine years. I started teaching at Western Washington University in 2024.
What are your personal hobbies or interests?
I enjoy teaching and playing board games.
Anything else you'd like to share?
I've been fortunate to spend the majority of my life with my wife and will celebrate our 25th anniversary next year. We have two wonderful children that will turn 12 and 16 in 2026.
2025
- Bényi, Árpád; Oh, Tadahiro; Zhao, Tengfei: Fractional Leibniz rule on the torus. Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 153 (2025), 207-221, DOI: 10.1090/proc/17007
- Bényi, Árpád; Torres, Rodolfo H.: An update on the compactness of bilinear commutators, In The Mathematical Heritage of Guido Weiss, Applied and Numerical Harmonic Analysis, Birkhäuser (2025), 83-100. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-76793-7_4
- Bényi, Árpád; Li, Guopeng; Oh, Tadahiro; Torres, Rodolfo H.: Compact bilinear operators and paraproducts revisited, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, 68 , no. 1, March 2025, 44-59 DOI: 10.4153/S000843952400047X
- Bényi, Árpád; Oh, Tadahiro; Torres, Rodolfo H.: Symbolic calculus for a class of pseudodifferential operators with applications to compactness. The Journal of Geometric Analysis, 35, 301 (2025) DOI: 10.1007/s12220-025-02128-8
- Bényi, Árpád; Li, Guopeng; Oh, Tadahiro; Torres, Rodolfo H.: Compact T(1) theorem à la Stein. Journal of Functional Analysis, Volume 289, Issue 7, 1 October 2025, 111052 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfa.2025.111052
- Bényi, Árpád; Ćurgus, Branko: Floor, ceiling and the space between. Annals of West University of Timisoara - Mathematics and Computer Science 61 (2025), 131-156. DOI:10.2478/awutm-2025-0010.
- Ćurgus, Branko; Dijksma, Aad: Operators Without Eigenvalues in Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces: Self-Adjoint Couplings and Shtraus Subspaces. Complex Analysis and Operator Theory 19, Article: 201 (2025). DOI:10.1007/s11785-025-01812-5.
- Maki, E.; Glimm, T.; Pramanik, P.; Chiari, Y.; Kiskowski, M. New Approaches for Capturing and Estimating Variation in Complex Animal Color Patterns from Digital Photographs: Application to the Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene Carolina). PeerJ 2025, 13, e19690. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.19690.
- Newman, S. A.; Benítez, M.; Bhat, R.; Glimm, T.; Kumar, K. V.; Nanjundiah, V.; Nicholson, D. J.; Sarkar, S. Agency in the Evolutionary Transition to Multicellularity. The Quarterly Review of Biology 2025, 100 (2), 83–118. https://doi.org/10.1086/735964.
2024
- Ćurgus, Branko; Derkach, Volodymyr; Trunk, Carsten: Indefinite Sturm–Liouville Operators in Polar Form. Integral Equations and Operator Theory 96 (2024) no. 1, Article number 2. DOI:10.1007/s00020-023-02746-3
- Larios, Adam; Pei, Yuan: Nonlinear continuous data assimilation. Evolution equations and Control Theory 13 (2024), no. 2, 329-348. DOI:10.3934/eect.2023048
- Beneish, Lea; Berg, Jennifer; Goedhart, Eva; Kadhem, Hussain M.; Serrano López, Allechar; Treneer, Stephanie: Replicable functions arising from code-lattice VOAs fixed by automorphisms. Journal of Algebra 642 (2024), 159-202. DOI:/10.1016/j.jalgebra.2023.12.008
- Bényi, Árpád: Diophantine approximations for a class of recursive sequences. The Mathematical Gazette 108.41 (2024), 518-521. DOI: 10.1017/mag.2024.125
- Zhu, Yanan; Zhang, Naimin; Chao, Zhen: Two Block Splitting Iteration Methods for Solving Complex Symmetric Linear Systems from Complex Helmholtz Equation. Mathematics 2024, 12(12). DOI: 10.3390/math12121888
- Islambouli, Gabriel; Karimi, Homayun; Lambert-Cole, Peter; Meier, Jeffrey: Toric multisections and curves in rational surfaces. Indiana University Mathematics Journal 73 (2024), no. 4, 1269–1306. DOI: 10.1512/iumj.2024.73.9945
- Jeon, Seongmin; Petrosyan, Arshak; Smit Vega Garcia, Mariana: Almost minimizers for the thin obstacle problem with variable coefficients. Interfaces and Free Boundaries 26 (2024), no. 3, 321–380. DOI: 10.4171/IFB/507
- Blair, Ryan; Cahn, Patricia; Kjuchukova, Alexandra; Meier, Jeffrey: Note on three-fold branched covers of S4. Université de Grenoble. Annales de l'Institut Fourier 74 (2024), no. 2, 849–866. DOI: 10.5802/aif.3588
- Chan, Daniel; Nyman, Adam: Noncommutative linear systems and noncommutative elliptic curves. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 377 (2024), no. 3, 1957–1987. DOI:10.1090/tran/9051
- Bianchi, Gabriele; Gardner, Richard J.; Gronchi, Paolo; Kiderlen, Markus: The Pólya-Szegő inequality for smoothing rearrangements. Journal of Functional Analysis 287 (2024), no. 2, Paper No. 110422, 56 pp. DOI:10.1016/j.jfa.2024.110422
- Meier, Jeffrey: Filling braided links with trisected surfaces. Algebraic & Geometric Topology 24 (2024), no. 2, 803–895. DOI: 10.2140/agt.2024.24.803
- Allen, Mark; Smit Vega Garcia, Mariana: Two-phase almost minimizers for a fractional free boundary problem. NoDEA. Nonlinear Differential Equations and Applications 31 (2024), no. 3, Paper No. 45, 39 pp. DOI: 10.1007/s00030-024-00937-4
- Glimm, T.; Gruszka, Daniel: Modeling the interplay of oscillatory synchronization and aggregation via cell-cell adhesion. Nonlinearity 37 (2024), no. 3, Paper No. 035016, 30 pp. DOI: 10.1088/1361-6544/ad237a
- Davey, Blair; Smit Vega Garcia, Mariana: Variable-coefficient parabolic theory as a high-dimensional limit of elliptic theory. Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations 63 (2024), no. 2, Paper No. 40, 47 pp. DOI: 10.1007/s00526-023-02644-x
- Noguchi, Kimihiro; Ward, Mayla C.: Asymptotic optimality of the square-root transformation on the gamma distribution using the Kullback-Leibler information number criterion. Statistics & Probability Letters 210 (2024), Paper No. 110118, 7 pp. DOI: 10.1016/j.spl.2024.110118
- Una, R.; Glimm, T. A Cellular Potts Model of the Interplay of Synchronization and Aggregation. PeerJ 2024, 12, e16974. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16974.
- Thapa, B. V.; Banerjee, M.; Glimm, T.; Saini, D. K.; Bhat, R. The Senescent Mesothelial Matrix Accentuates Colonization by Ovarian Cancer Cells. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 2023, 81 (1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-023-05017-x.
Call for Alumni Updates
We would love to hear from our former students! Please email us about any updates on where you work, any advanced degrees earned, and anything else you would like to share. Let us know if we can include you in the alumni section of our newsletter. Please include a photo of yourself as well.
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Credits
Newsletter by Josh Cochran
Editors: David Hartenstine
Contributors: David Hartenstine, Tjalling Ypma, Rebecca Borowski, Kimi Noguchi, Mikayla King, Millie Johnson, Mariana Smit Vega Garcia, Daphne Scott, Andy Richards, Nick Henscheid, Berit Manser, Laina Mercer, Kevin Fournier, Maggie Minogue, Dori Harcharik, Peach Auengpradijporn, Wes Schirmer