Learning
Student Buck presents research at mathematics conference
Muskingum University student Leah Buck presented her research findings at the Young Mathematicians Conference (YMC), held at The Ohio State University August 19 – 21.
Buck, who begins her senior year this fall, is a mathematics major from Zanesville. Her selection to be included in the YMC is a significant honor because only about one in three students who apply are accepted as presenters. For this year’s conference, there were more than 200 applicants from across the United States.
Her presentation, titled Constructing a Universal Algebraic Differential Equation Based on Trigonometric Relationships, focuses on the construction of differential equations using methods from calculus and introductory analysis. This method modifies the work of the late Lee Albert Rubel by using trigonometric relationships. Rubel was a mathematician renowned for his work in analog computing.
Her acceptance to the YMC is not Buck’s first significant recognition as a researcher and mathematician. This summer, she was one of only eight students selected from 330 applicants in the country to be accepted into the Research Experience for Undergraduates in Mathematics program at California State University, Fresno. Her work there was to develop new methods and improve existing methods of using multiplier sequences to locate the zeros of special classes of analytic functions.
In April, she was one of only two undergraduate presenters at the Spring Meeting of the Ohio Section of the Mathematical Association of America, held at Ohio Northern University. That meeting is typically dominated by faculty and graduate-level students.
Buck’s academic advisor at Muskingum is Professor of Mathematics Dr. Richard Daquila.
