Undergraduate Awards

The annual Mathematics Department luncheon to honor its outstanding undergraduates was held this year on May 31 at the University of Washington Club on campus. A gift from the firm of Towers Perrin helped pay for the luncheon and was also used for a new award, the Towers Perrin Award, given to the outstanding graduating mathematics major with an interest in actuarial science. The first winner of this award was Michelle Seim, who is currently working in Capital Markets – Foreign Exchange at Microsoft. The other awards were given in the usual categories, to both graduating seniors and continuing students.

Zhili Wu and Owen Biesel were named the outstanding students in first and second year honors calculus, respectively. Zhili is continuing with second year honors calculus, and Owen is studying real analysis at the graduate level.

The winners of the Gullicksen Awards for outstanding juniors in mathematics were Nicholas Reichert and Noah Giansiracusa. Nick also scored the highest among UW students in the Putnam Exam, a nationwide undergraduate math competition. Currently, Nick is taking several advanced graduate courses in mathematics and is a TA for second year honors calculus, while Noah is participating in the Math in Moscow program this fall. He intends to be back at the UW come winter.

Eliana Hechter, another outstanding junior, was awarded a Phelps Fellowship, to be used for participation in Professor Morrow's REU program. Eliana is now studying algebra and real analysis at the graduate level and is a TA for first year honors calculus.

The winners of the other awards for outstanding graduating seniors in Mathematics were Karl Fredrickson, Ann Dao, Michelle Goldstein, Braxton Osting, and Jennifer French. Karl Fredrickson won the award for outstanding B.A. (Standard Option) major; he is now a graduate student in Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. Ann Dao won the award for outstanding B.A. major in the Teacher Preparation Option and is continuing at the UW as a graduate student in the Teacher Education Program. She hopes to eventually teach sixth grade mathematics. The outstanding B.S. Standard Option graduate was Michelle Goodstein, who is now a graduate student in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, where she is the holder of a Clare Booth Luce Graduate Fellowship.

Braxton Osting won the award for outstanding ACMS major and is now a graduate student in Applied Mathematics at Columbia. He plans to use his experience as a member of the UW's championship mathematical modeling team to coach a team at Columbia for this competition. Joining Braxton and Michelle back East is Jennifer French, the winner of the award for the outstanding B.S. Comprehensive Option graduate: after spending the summer as a TA for the REU program here, she entered MIT as a graduate student in Mathematics.

Ethan Devinatz

In addition to the yearly Departmental honors given at the luncheon, several Mathematics undergraduates earned awards from outside the Department. They include the following:

• Joel Nishimura: UW Freshman Medalist
• Jeffrey Eaton: UW Sophomore Medalist
• Anna Schneider: 2005 Goldwater Scholarship Award
• Noah Giansiracusa: Fall 2005 AMS Math in Moscow Scholarship Award