Math alum, prof have research together published

Dr. Jason Callahan and Harris Greenwood, a mathematics major who graduated in 2014, have just had a paper, Markov Chains to Compute Expected Game Lengths of “Chutes and Ladders,” on research they conducted together while Harris was a student published by the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal (Spring 2016, Volume 14, Number 4, pages 243-250). Using Markov chains, they prove a conjecture that on any “Chutes and Ladders” board with n squares, uniformly distributed spinners of range n-1 and n always yield equal expected game lengths. They then show that non-uniformly distributed spinners can yield shorter games than uniformly distributed spinners but can also lead to seemingly paradoxical results when the related Markov chain is not absorbing. Their research was supported by the Brother Romard Barthel, CSC, ’47 Student/Faculty Summer Research Fund Wilems Fellowship in 2013 and the Dr. M. Jean McKemie and Suzanne Mason Endowed Student/Faculty Fund for Innovative Mathematics Summer Scholarship in 2014. They presented their research at the 2013 and 2015 Texas Section Meetings of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the 2013 Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, the 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings, and the 2014 MAA MathFest. Harris now plans to pursue graduate study in mathematics.

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