Category Archives: General

Starting and maintaining research collaborations

A successful research career involves a mix of individual and collaborative projects. Areas of mathematics that people used to consider separate are becoming increasingly interconnected and those connections often lead to interesting new approaches to mathematical problems. This is true … Continue reading

Posted in General, Industrial Mathematics, postdocs, Tenure | 5 Comments

Why You Need a Summer Plan

The AMS e-mentoring blog has already celebrated the finals week with Dagan Karp’s tips. If you are an instructor, this will mean that you have a few hours (or days) of intense grading work, and then the semester is over. … Continue reading

Posted in General, Graduate School, postdocs, Tenure | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Learning From and Addressing Negative Comments in Student Teaching Evaluations

Learning From & Addressing Negative Comments in Student Teaching Evaluations I think it’s safe to say that most math Ph.D.s do some teaching sometime in their lives. Even if one’s career path ends up being non-academic, it’s likely that a … Continue reading

Posted in General, Tenure, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Fundamental Principle of Productivity: What they DON’T teach you in graduate school

A long time ago … I was an enthusiastic graduate student in mathematics. I had finally figured out that mathematics was what I would be doing with myself. I would continue to learn more mathematics and I would finally be … Continue reading

Posted in General, Going to graduate school, Graduate School, postdocs, Tenure | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Ubiquity of Pi Day: It’s Not Just for Math Geeks

More and more every year, popular culture seems to be fascinated with Pi Day: the one day of the year where the infamous irrational number \( \pi = 3.14 \) is celebrated to eponymous accuracy, that is, on March 14. … Continue reading

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I just found out that January is National Mentoring Month! http://www.nationalmentoringmonth.org/ The idea of mentorship is central here (the eMentoring Network!), so this is a good excuse to remind myself: I think all of us can act as mentors (and … Continue reading

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Dealing with Illness and Loss Early in One’s Mathematical Career

Hello again folks! It’s nice to be writing again. I’ve been on a partial medical leave of absence since last June. This isn’t the first time that I’ve had to deal with longterm illness. And I have many friends, as … Continue reading

Posted in General, Tenure | 4 Comments

Mentoring at SACNAS

I have been thinking of the many mentoring opportunities that conferences offer. It is usually not the typical long-term mentoring that students look for from their advisors, but it is very important for many reasons. The SACNAS conference took place … Continue reading

Posted in General, Outreach | Leave a comment

Five suggestions to be a successful undergraduate

There are lots of things that undergraduate students can do to be successful. I have written a few here that I find very important and often neglected. See what you think.

Posted in General, Going to graduate school, graduation | 2 Comments

How Do I Find Money for Graduate School?

At many schools across the country, the Fall Semester is underway. (My university’s first day of classes was exactly three weeks ago.) That means many students are beginning their final year of college and wondering what the future holds. Well, … Continue reading

Posted in General, Going to graduate school, graduation | 2 Comments