AGENDA
- Call to Order
- Chair's Remarks
- Department Committee Assignments
- Announcements
- Graduate student award nominations - Pevtsova
- Consent Agenda
- Discussion of bylaws
- Committee Reports
- Report from the GSR
- New Business
- Executive Session
- Adjournment
MINUTES
The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics was held in PDL C-38 at 3:30pm PST, October 7, 2025. Max Lieblich, Chair, presided over the meeting. Rose Choi was the recording secretary.
Chair's Remarks
Max Lieblich welcomed the new faculty, Acting Assistant Professors Jinwoo Sung and Michele Pernice.
We have three faculty who will be speaking at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians: Jarod Alper, Thomas Rothvoss, and Cynthia Vinzant.
We currently have 35 confirmed grants plus 18 more pending from faculty within the department.
I pitched a more ambitious plan with Jane Street Capital for this year and the Hargraves Estate donated $100k to the department.
There is a new four-year-term faculty fellowship in the works. Details will be made available soon.
Our summer research program was very successful. We had a large turn out of students and we’ll be building upon this model moving forward.
Our summer enrollment was also successful. We grossed $200k and anticipate bringing in closer to $300k next summer. This provides the department with a buffer for operating costs independent of the college and external grants.
Soumik Pal is very close to submitting our master’s program proposal. We are in the process of recording content for the courses which can also be used in existing courses.
We will be hiring at least two more Acting Assistant Professors this year. Isabella Novik is chairing the search committee. We also hope to be able to admit around ten graduate students depending on the amount of funding made available by the college.
Committee assignments are almost ready. The final core committees have yet to be finalized. Once those have been decided we can have a discussion of the department’s bylaws.
Following up on this morning’s email about our new shared IT services, please read it thoroughly and follow the instructions on how to file a ticket for requests.
The floor was opened to discuss changing the regular meeting schedule.
Announcements
Andrei Okounkov will be visiting the department next week to give the Walker-Ames Scholar Special Lecture along with a Math Hour talk and special graduate student colloquium. If you are interested in meeting with him please contact Julia Pevtsova or Farbod Shokrieh.
The Math AI lab is off to a great start. They have 11 projects, around 45 undergraduates, six or seven PhD students, three faculty from math and one from ECE. They’ve also received $60k in outside funding.
Richard Kenyon will be delivering the Birnbaum Lecture at the Pacific Northwest Probability Seminar on Saturday, October 18.
There is a Y Math talk by Chinmay Nirkhe this Friday.
UW Math graduate students Alexander Wang and Cameron Wright helped mentor 30 students from around the country at the Park City Experimental Math Lab this past summer. Previous participants have been alums Sam Fairchild, Albert Artiles, and Paige Helms.
Please send nominations for students to the SLMath summer graduate schools to Julia Pevtsova. She will also be collecting nominations for the department’s graduate student awards. Graduate TA award nominations should be directed to Charles Camacho, Andy Loveless, or Elena Pezzoli.
This is a reminder that the department has travel funding available for graduate students to apply for but that the first method should be for support through their advisor. In addition, there is funding via the graduate school.
Consent Agenda
A consent agenda was sent out to faculty in advance of the meeting re: approval of the previous meeting's minutes, the department’s retention policy, and the delegation of authority for temporary appointments. A motion was made to sever the retention policy from the vote. The remaining items were approved and passed.
Report from the GSR
Zawad Chowdhury and Patrick O'Melveny are this year’s Graduate Student Representatives. The Current Topics seminar will be rescheduled from the autumn to winter quarter to better align with first and second year student schedules. Requests for speakers will be going out via email. There are also several events geared towards graduating students providing support for job applications, etc. in the Career Transitions talks held every Thursday at 4:30pm.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 4:15pm.