News

On April 2nd, 2022, the 27th Joint NMSU/UTEP Workshop on Mathematics, Computer Science, and Computational Sciences was held at NMSU.

Math department professors initiated a gathering in support of the Ukrainian people in the wake of the Russian invasion. A group of faculty at New Mexico State University, their families, and students got together in front of Corbett Center to show their solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
Las Cruces Sun-News
NMSU News

Our colleague of many years, Laura White-Hosford, has retired in January. There are likely a few thousand business and biology students that learned calculus from Laura!

John Selden passed away on January 8th. John Selden retired to New Mexico with his wife Annie Selden in the early 2000’s. They formed a well-known team that worked in math education for many years prior to their retirement, and continued their work as adjuncts in our department. John and Annie regularly volunteered to teach a course on proving mathematics to entering graduate students in our department, and helped many of our graduate students on their path. The Selden Prize of the MAA is named after them.
John Selden Obituary

Linda Zimmerman passed away on January 7th. Linda Zimmerman was a College Professor with many years in our department. Linda was a very well-liked instructor who was dedicated to her students. For several years Linda battled serious illness, but remained upbeat and positive. Linda was very much looking forward to being back teaching this semester when a sudden crisis hit her. 
A virtual celebration of Linda's life will be held on Thursday, February 10 at 1:00 PM MST. 
Linda Zimmerman Obituary

Emeritus Professor, Arthur Kruse, passed away on December 21, 2021 at La Posada in Las Cruces. Arthur received his Ph.D. in 1956 from the University of Chicago under the guidance of one of the major figures of 20th century mathematics, Saunders Mac Lane. His dissertation was titled “Introduction to the Theory of Block Assemblages and Development in the Theory of Retraction”. After spending several years at the University of Kansas, Art joined NMSU in 1960 and retired in 1995. He had 7 doctoral students including Edward Gaughan, who was also a long-time member of the NMSU Department of Mathematical Sciences.

The department seeks applications for a tenure-track position in topology https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/18310

NMSU has joined MSRI. This is a consortium of top research institutions that offers curreing edge research opportunities to faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students at locations around the world. 

The Department has joined Math Alliance. This is a consortium of universities devoted to the advancement of underrepresented groups in graduate education in mathematics and statistics.

The department held an international conference in logic and foundations titled BLAST. There were nearly 300 registered participants.

The department is now offering a menu of 5 lower-division service courses to serve students in the new and quickly growing NMSU-Online. Apart from benefits to students and the university, this allows us to support an additional 4-5 graduate students.

The very successful “Math Problem of the Week” contest for undergraduates continues. https://math.nmsu.edu/activities/math-problem-of-the-week.html

A new promotional video describes our department to prospective undergraduate students. https://vimeo.com/574488960/484cac66c0

Mary Ballyk wins the university Westhafer Award for teaching. This award, named after former Mathematics Department Head Robert Westhafer, is given in alternate years for teaching and research. It is the university’s highest honor.

Andres Contreras has received his tenure and promotion to Associate Professor.

John Harding received a 3-year, $348,000 grant from the Army titled Logic and Geometry in Quantum Computing.

Tingting Tong has received the Anna Schrufer Kist Scholarship.

Sebastian Meltzer received the Charles and Nita Swartz Scholarship.

Chau Hoang, Le Tran, and Ishraq Al-Awamleh received Kist Outstanding Graduate Student Awards.

Remembering Dr. Karen Trujillo.

About the Department

The department offers courses in mathematics and statistics leading to the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degree. At the Bachelor’s level we have several options for career preparation, such as applied mathematics and actuarial science. 

Our faculty has research groups in many areas of pure and applied mathematics, and in mathematics education. Strengths lie in commutative algebra, logic and foundations, probability and statistics, dynamical systems, mathematical biology, variational methods in partial differential equations especially relevant to materials science, and applied and computational harmonic analysis with applications to machine learning and data analysis. 

We provide courses for other disciplines throughout the NMSU main campus. This includes the sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, agriculture, business, and education. This includes preparatory and general education courses that ensure every student has the quantitative and reasoning skills needed every career now demands. 

The department’s mission is to provide core education in mathematics and statistics that prepares graduate and undergraduate students to be knowledgeable and responsible citizens of the world. 

Our Math Success Center offers free online tutoring services to math students in all majors.