News updates from the Department of Mathematics for the year 2015.

• Through a generous gift by Dr. Michael Brin from the University of Maryland the Michael Brin Endowed Support Fund for Lectureships in the Memory of Nikolai Chernov was established. Proceeds will fund lectures at UAB and at international conferences on Dynamical Systems, a major field of interest for both Dr. Chernov and Dr. Brin.
• In honor of our late colleague Dr. Nikolai Chernov the Chernov Memorial Fund was established by friends and colleagues in recognition of Kolya's accomplishments as researcher and teacher. Proceeds will fund scholarships for undergraduate mathematics students.
• Dr. Roger Lewis, together with his co-authors Alexander Balinsky and Desmond Evans from Cardiff University in the UK, published a book entitled The Analysis and Geometry of Hardy's Inequality.
• On June 30 Kyle Besing successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis Spectral properties and localization of two random Laplacians on graphs. His studies were directed by Dr. G. Stolz.
• Samuel Wunderly received the 2015-2016 O'Neil Scholarship.
• Andrew Sluss is the recipient of the 2015-2016 Warner Scholarship.
• Kaitlyn Lee was awarded the 2015-2016 Travis Wood Memorial Scholarship.
• Hriday Bhambhvani, Alexandra Fry, and Brian Trammell received College of Arts and Sciences Scholarships.
• Simon Harris, Garrett Higginbotham, Elizabeth Liddle, and William Tidwell received Department of Mathematics Scholarships.
• On May 6 Brandon Barry successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis On the Simplest Lamination of a Given Identity Return Triangle. His studies were directed by Dr. J. Mayer.
• Newly minted Mathematics graduates Tori Gandy and Adrian Jones were selected by the Teach for America program to serve as teachers in Chicago and Oklahoma, respectively.
• Fast-track student Andrew Arnold was accepted to attend the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program for next academic year (2015-16).
• On April 17 Fatin Alawam successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis Subsurface parameter estimation in oilfield modeling. Her studies were directed by Dr. I. Knowles.
• Fast-track student Jarrod Hicks scored among the top 25% of participants on the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, considered to be one of the most prestigious mathematics examination in the world. UAB's Putnam team is sponsored by Profs. Jung and Simanyi. The competition is held once a year in December.
• Ph.D. student Alzaki Fadlallah and Fast-track student Alexandra Fry won Best Lecture Award and Best Undergraduate Poster Award, respectively, at the 39th SIAM-SEAS conference held March 20-22 at UAB.
• Ph.D. students Alzaki Fadlallah and Caleb Moxley won first and second place, respectively, at the 2015 Graduate Student Research Days.
• Terrence Muthoka, Jessica Barnett, and Rachel Ejem were chosen as the department's Outstanding PhD Student, Outstanding Master's Student, and Outstanding Undergraduate Student, respectively.
• Math and neuroscience major Hriday Bhambhvani won first place for his poster at the Undergraduate Research Competition in Biological Sciences at the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Alabama Academy of Sciences hosted recently by the University of West Alabama.
• On January 21 Alzaki Fadlallah successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis Elliptic Equations and Systems with Nonlinear Boundary Conditions. His studies were directed by Dr. M. Nkashama.