Undergraduate Research

All St. Edward’s mathematics majors complete a four-semester sequence of MATH 4157 Research, in which they identify and complete an independent research project with a mathematics faculty member.

In the first three semesters, students give oral presentations and write a research proposal or report.  In the final semester, students present at our on-campus Senior Seminar Symposium and write a journal article on their work.  Many of these students also apply for summer research grants in order to supplement or extend the four-semester sequence.

Some recent students and their topics include:

2019
Elias Bocanegra – Analyzing Radiosonde Data During Extreme Weather Events
Juan Pablo Chouza – Parking Functions
Ayesha Gonzales – The Design of Satellite Constellations and the Antarctica Problem
Ivan Mota – Integer Values for Generating Functions of Gibonacci Sequences
Bianca Salinas – Foldings on Generalized Bonding Graphs
James Skyler Young – Non-transitive Dice: Which One Wins When

2018
Grace Akomezogho – Using the CART Method to Predict Surface Level Ozone Concentrations
Andy Barnes – Trends in Houston Surface Ozone from 1980-2016
Jacob Belmares – Comparing Permanents to Determinants Using Hadamard Products
Saarim Damani – Applying Multivariate Regression for Corrections to Ozonesonde Data
Sable Levy – The Curious Pivot Points of Best-Fit Lines
Amira Mahler – American Roulette: How Boldly Can You Play?
Maria Mota – Solving Scramble Squares Puzzles with Repetition
Stephanie Thrash – The Hunt for Disjoint Chains
Garrett Venner – Repeated Letters in Boggle Logic Puzzles
Wilson Whitener – On the Behavior of a Dynamical System Based on Voronoi Tessellations
Sydney Zucker – Squigonometry: Distinguishing Right Triangles from the Wrong Ones

2017
Trenton Barnett – Optimizing Paths with Geometric Obstacles
Toni Galvan – Who Ranked It Better?
Valeria Gonzales – Graceful Graphs
Crisel Suarez – Tiling and Tetris

2016
Sharon Freshour  – Solving the KO labyrinth
Justin Myers – Variations of Nim
Roman Morales – Rank of Recurrence Matrices
Natalia Ramos  – Binominal Coefficients
Gilbert Rivera  – Corona Discharge and Tropospheric Ozone Levels
Alexandra Rudder  – Extension of Instant Insanity II
Jesse Thomas  –  Packing Unit Triangles into an Equilateral Triangle
Jasmynne Wilson  – Towards Better Physics Labs for Future Biologists

2015
Dezirie Cavazos -Decent Polynomials
Li-Chun Chao  –  “Almost” Bloc Voting Systems and the Banzhaf Power Index
Joseph Grantham – Periodic Sequences and Periodic Orbits on Equilateral Triangles
Nicolas Hyde – Discrete Dynamics of Folds
Leslie King  –  Constructions of Möbius Transformations
Sterling Loza  –  Rank Unimodality of Order Ideals in Products of Chains
Noah Whitaker  – Brain Displacement

2014
Harris Greenwood  – Using Markov Chains to Estimate the Length of Board Games
Alexa Ortiz  – Rank-Unimodality of Binary Partitions
Rogelio Ortiz  –  Amphicheiral Links with Odd Crossing Number
Gregory Popelka  –  A Square Tiling of the Quarter Plane

2013
Alex Johnson – Virtual Knot Games
Felice Mueller  – Cops and Robber Focused on 2-Copwin Graphs
Sierra “Dani” Pedroza  – The Probability that a Matrix of Integers Is    Diagonalizable
Michael Rivera  – Probabilistic Measure of Convexity

2012
Payden Johnson – The Linking Game
W. Paul Wright  – Reverse Elliptical Curve Primality Proving