Events

Mathematics Colloquium

On Friday, April 11, 2025, Mr. William Logan'09, FSA, CERA, an Actuary at Transamerica will present a lecture in the Actuarial Science & Risk Management Speaker Series on Stable value fund dynamics: Understanding withdrawal patterns through experience studies.

Abstract: This presentation will examine the withdrawal patterns of participants from stable value funds. Our journey will start by exploring the stable value industry, learning about the mechanics of these products, while specifically highlighting the risks inherent in the business. Leveraging our understanding, we will build a dataset that combines our withdrawal experience with key economic indicators that will serve as the foundation for our investigation into the drivers of participant behavior. We’ll then employ Python to conduction regression analyses and uncover the most significant contributors to withdrawal patterns. We’ll conclude by reviewing the implications of the study and discussing potential enhancements to the analysis. Question and answer session about all things actuarial to follow the presentation.

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, Dr. Halil Tasova, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at CalState - San Bernardino will present a virtual colloquium lecture on Middle school students’ meanings of points from quantitative and covariational reasoning perspectives.

Abstract: In this talk we will discuss students’ meanings of points when graphing relationships between quantities in dynamic, experiential contexts. Using data from teaching experiments with middle-grade students, I will illustrate and discuss various meanings, highlighting key differences in them. Two main types of meanings emerged from the data: iconic and quantitative. I will describe four distinct meanings: (i) iconic and transformed iconic translations (where a point represents an object/location), (ii) non-united points (where a point represents a single quantity’s magnitude), (iii) spatial-quantitative multiplicative objects (where a point is an object/location with quantitative properties), and (iv) quantitative multiplicative objects in conventional and non-conventional planes (where a point represents two quantities’ magnitudes). We will conclude with a discussion of the implications of these meanings for research, teaching, and curriculum development.

Recent Mathematics Colloquium Talks

Seminar Meetings

The Mathematics Seminar is the venue where Towson faculty and students report on their research activities. In addition several research groups have research seminars in their respective research areas:

• ASRM Seminar (coordinated by Min Ji):
  Meets on Fridays at 10 am
• Number Theory Seminar (coordinated by A. Kumchev and N. McNew):
  Meets on Tuesdays at 5 pm in YR 320.

Recent and Upcoming Seminars

• April 7, 2025, Faculty Seminar.
  

  Dr. Banghee So, Assistant Professor of Actuarial Science, will give a seminar talk on A Novel Neural Network Model with Predictive Power and Interpretability for Insurance Pricing.
  
  Abstract. A core principle of insurance lies in pooling resources to compensate individuals affected by insured events, such as accidents or property damage. To remain competitive and profitable, insurance pricing must accurately reflect underlying risks. Traditionally, Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) have dominated rate-making in property and casualty insurance since the 1990s. However, recent advancements have sparked growing interest in Machine Learning (ML), particularly Neural Networks (NNs), for their superior predictive capabilities and ability to capture complex feature interactions. Despite these advantages, the adoption of NNs in commercial insurance has been limited due to their lack of interpretability. Unlike GLMs, which offer clear insight into the influence of individual features, NNs operate as black boxes, making it difficult to explain their predictions. As transparency is critical in insurance pricing, especially for regulatory and customer communication purposes, advancing interpretable NN models presents a promising direction for future actuarial rateodeling. This talk introduces an innovative NN model that strikes a balance between interpretability and predictive capability by integrating traditional models used in insurance such as the GLM or multinomial logistic regression with a deep neural network (DNN).

• April 8, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
  

  Dr. Russell Hendel, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics, will give a talk on A Family of Sequences Generalizing the Thue-Morse and Rudin-Shapiro Sequences.
  
  Abstract: For $m\ge 1$, let $P_m=1^m$ be the binary string of $m$ ones. Further, define, for each $m$, the infinite sequence $s_m$ by $s_{m,n}=1$ iff the number of (possibly overlapping) occurrences of $P_m$ in the binary representation of $n\ge 0$ is odd. The family of sequences $(s_m{)}_{m\ge 1}$ generalizes the Thue-Morse, $s_1$, and Rudin-Shapiro, $s_2$ sequences. The main results of this talk are the following:

  • For each $m$, $s_m$ is automatic. The minimal DFA (deterministic finite automata) accepting $s_m$ has $2m$ states, and its transition function is completely described.

  • For each $m$, the length $2^{m-1}$ prefixes of the sequences of the 2-kernel (regarded as words) are all distinct. Moreover, the characteristic functions of these prefixes can be completely described using the Vile and Jacobstahl sequences.

• March 11, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
  Dr. David Hubbard gave a talk on Computing the p-part of the class group.
• March 4, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
  Vishal Gupta, University of Delaware, gave a talk on the Minimum spectral radius in a given class of graphs.
• February 25, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
  Dr. William Craig, US Naval Academy, gave a talk on Quasimodular forms, q-multiple zeta values, and partitions.
• November 21, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
  Alexander Kalogirou, University of South Carolina, gave a talk on Disjoint covering systems.  
• November 15, 2024: ASRM Speaker Series. 
  Shelby Cimino, ASA, gave a talk on Actuarial modeling: An overview.
• September 10, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
  Dr. Edinah Gnang, Johns Hopkins University, gave a talk on All trees on n edges decompose the complete bipartite graph $K_{n,n}$.
• August 20, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
  Dr. Harald Helfgott, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu, gave a talk on Expansion, divisibility and parity.

Recent Mathematics Seminar & Sabbatical Talks

• On March 24, 2025, Dr. Jing Tian presented a sabbatical lecture on Parameter Analysis in Continuous Data Assimilation for Various Turbulence Models.
• On February 24, 2025, Dr. Sebastian Calvo presented a seminar on the Waldschmidt constant of complex reflection groups.
• On October 16, 2024, Dr. Min Deng presented a sabbatical lecture on Bayesian Inference for the Loss Models via Mixture Priors. 
• On September 30, 2024, Dr. Melike Kara Atas presented a sabbatical lecture on Improving Pre-Service Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Fraction Concepts. 
• On April 21, 2024, Dr. Nathan McNew presented a sabbatical lecture on The Middle Prime Factor of Integers.
• On April 15, 2024, Ms. Lily Glushakow-Smith gave a seminar on Developmental Math: Is Our Approach Serving the Aspirations of Underprepared Students?
• On March 25, 2024, Dr. Daniel Freese gave a seminar on Periodic Minimal Surfaces from Gluing Helicoids.
• On March 11, 2024, Dr. Miriam Parnes gave a seminar on Indivisibility for Classes of Graphs.