Four math department faculty members and four students in the math program attended the Spring meeting of the Allegheny Mountain section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) on April 5-6, 2019 at Shepherd University. The students gave three talks and the faculty gave two talks. The faculty in attendance were Dr. Brian Blackwood, Dr. Tom Cuchta, Dennine LaRue, and Dr. Bob Niichel. The students in attendance were Kristina Daniels, Brooke Fincham, Sydney Maibach, and Michael Pavelites.

Two of the student talks are part of the “Preparation for Industrial Careers in mathematics” (PIC Math) grant from the MAA obtained this academic year by Dr. Niichel. The other student talk was be part of the NASA IV&V SARP cybersecurity grant.

Brooke Fincham spoke on a “A Mathematical Model for Proactive Bank Hiring.” She devised a predictive model for the proactive hiring of employees at First United Bank & Trust in Morgantown.

Kristina Daniels and Sydney Maibach gave two presentations. One was a talk about a project for Mon Valley Habitat for Humanity on “Optimizing Low-Income House Loans,” where they have created a predictive model to help maximize the number of families helped by the organization. The other talk was on the activities of the NASA cybersecurity SARP grant.

Mathematics faculty Dr. Robert J. Niichel and Dr. Tom Cuchta gave talks as well. Dr. Niichel’s talk was titled “Machine learning and Monte Carlo at NASA”, and he spoke about a grant the math department received last year from TMC^2 Industries. Dr. Cuchta’s talk was “An  Introduction to Nonstandard Topology.”

The Allegheny Section of the MAA is the regional section containing western Pennsylvania and all of West Virginia (except Cabell county), first created in 1933. Dr. Cuchta and Dr. Niichel both serve on the executive committee of this organization, as Director of e-Communications and as Puzzle Czar, respectively.