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Author: Lona | Image: Lona

#Reaching out

Kris Lee, lecturer in mathematics, shows middle school students a tiling exercise using colorful foam tiles at a table. — Kris Lee leads students in a tiling and pattern exercise as part of the Investigation Series
through OPPTAG in the Memorial Union.
Photo by Christopher Gannon, Iowa State University.

Led by the Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, we offer many outreach activities to students and teachers around the state. In February, Iowa State hosted more than 80 high school and middle school students and 15 teachers for the annual Great Plains Math League competition for high school and middle school students across the state. Over the years, dozens of these students have gone on to major in mathematics at ISU and at least three of our present graduate students competed in the contest. Our faculty and students also participated in the Investigation Series Program sponsored by the Office of Admissions Early Outreach at Iowa State and in spring activities for 4-H students Workshops like “Fun with Tiling” and “Mathemagical Card Tricks” help young students creatively interact with sophisticated math concepts.

#Math + grows
Our Math + Application Area for the major continues to grow! This allows students to major in math, plus complete coursework in an application area. This year we added a new track: Math + Computational Science and Engineering. Our Math + Actuarial Science track remains popular and we continue to work with the College of Business on developing a major and certificate in Actuarial Sciences.

Student Mengyu "Allen" Wang receiving a certificate from James Wilson, director of undergraduate education in mathematics, in honor of receiving the Goldwater scholarship. — In Spring 2017, Mengyu “Allen” Wang (’18 aerospace engineering, economics and mathematics) received a **Goldwater Scholarship**, the premier undergraduate scholarship in mathematics, natural sciences and engineering.

#New scholarships
This year our Department added several new scholarships. The [James L. Cornette Scholarship or Award](https://math.iastate.edu/academics/undergraduate-awards-information/#Cornette) recognizes an undergraduate mathematics major with achievements in the application of mathematics to an area of science. The [Diedrichsen Scholarship in Mathematics](https://math.iastate.edu/academics/undergraduate-awards-information/#Diedrichsen) recognizes a mathematics major with an interest in actuarial science. The [Fred Wright Mathematics Endowed Scholarship](https://math.iastate.edu/academics/undergraduate-awards-information/#Wright) recognizes undergraduate mathematics majors with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. This generous support makes a tremendous difference for our students by reducing student loan debt and allowing them to focus fully on academics.

#New thesis archive
Mathematics Ph.D. dissertations since 1933 and Masters theses since 1923 are now listed [online](math.iastate.edu/thesis-archive/).

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