AGENDA
- Call to Order
- Chair's Remarks
- Announcements
- Math AI Lab - Alper
- Colloquium - Rohde
- Consent Agenda
- 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 ALB 485 at 3:30pm PST, December 2, 2025. Max Lieblich, Chair, presided over the meeting. Rose Choi was the recording secretary.
Chair's Remarks
Starting in January, the department meetings will be held in the HUB at 11am. There will be catering.
Jane Street Capital will provide the department with $20k per year for two years to provide summer support to our graduate students. They will also provide $5k this year and $10k next year to go towards departmental social events.
Jarod Alper will be conducting research at Google DeepMind next year.
WXML will receive $50k over the next four years from Vaho Rebassoo.
Seminar funding will now provide $300 per external speaker with no seminar cap as of January but the meal reimbursement policy will remain the same.
AAP hiring is underway. We are planning to hire up to three people and Bella Novik is chairing the Search Committee. You will receive communications from her about the process.
There will be two rounds of solicitations for summer teaching: faculty will be eligible for the first round followed by the graduate students. The Program and Executive Committees formulated the salary structure: faculty will be paid per course at either 1 months salary or $10k (whichever is smaller) whilst the graduate students will be paid at the union rate. Instructor mentors will receive $3k and the MSC director $5k. The MSC director position will be open to both faculty and graduate students this year. All courses this summer will be hybrid.
Simons travel grant applications are due at the end of January. Please consider applying for it in light of the uncertainties surrounding the NSF. AMS fellowships may also be available. Please contact Pam ASAP if you are interested.
Merit evaluations will run earlier this year in order to meet the CAS guidelines for promotion reviews in April. The Personnel Committee has proposed running the review process in two forms: the merit process and the review process.
Announcements
Next Wednesday, December 10th from 4-5:30pm in OUG 136, is the final Math AI Lab poster presentation in conjunction with WXML; please attend. This lab evolved from WXML growing into a more lab driven model with year-long projects and multiple graduate student mentors, faculty, and post-docs. Over time, the lab may bifurcate into a pure research lab and one with capstone projects that could potentially provide opportunities for departmental revenue and partnerships with industry. The lab has already received $60k in gifts with another anonymous $50k gift in process, $20k of AWS credit from the eScience Institute in the works, and potentially $40k from Nebius AI. We are in discussions with Madrona Investing and Amazon to fund the LEAN hackathon in the spring; we’ve built up connections with other departments around campus with an eye towards a certificate in the masters program focused on AI in math; potential affiliate positions to industry professionals to teach or co-teach math AI courses; build industry connections to fund future AI math projects. Faculty and postdocs are needed to join our mentorship projects. This could also provide an avenue for undergraduates to participate in research.
Speakers with broad viewpoints that can appeal to a more general audience are needed for the colloquia. Please contact Steffen Rohde with suggestions. Rohde will be stepping down as colloquium chair next year.
We will be bringing back the Milliman Lectures this year with Richard Kenyon as the first speaker this May from the 12th thru 14th.
Report from the GSR
The Current Topics seminar will be in the Winter quarter rather than the Fall. There are a couple of spots left for speakers. If you are interested, please contact one of the GSRs.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 4:24pm.