Welcome to the M³ Webpage!!!

M³: Mentoring for Minorities in Mathematics is part of the National Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (NREUP) funded by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the National Science Foundation Division of Mathematical Sciences (NSF-DMS), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Moody's Foundation (Moody).

The topic for Summer 2008 is Dynamical Systems and Chaos.  We will be in session from May 5^th to June 13^th.  Drs. Thelwell and Tongen will mentor the following four students  for this research project:

• Jan Herburt-Hewell (hand in pocket)
• Michael Dankwa (baseball cap)
• Lianne Louizou (long hair)
• Juan Carlos Ortega (colorful shirt)

Project Summary:
During the first two days of the summer program, the students built a chaotic waterwheel (see picture to the right).  They then proceeded to learn dynamical systems so they could better understand, mathematically, the behavior of the wheel they built.  They are next going to build the first ever choatic sandwheel (at least to our knowledge) and derive the equations that govern the behavior of the new system and answer questions like:
Do you still see chaotic behavior?
Do you still see periodic behavior?
What is the qualitative behavior of the sand wheel?
What is the quantitative behavior the sand wheel?

Final Presentations - Friday, June 13^th, 2008 at 1:30 pm  in Roop 103

You can see the experimental progress that was made by examining the following two movies: Water and Sand (you will need quicktime to view these movies).


The topic for Summer 2007 was Discrete Mathematics with applications to Biology.  We were in session from May 14^th to June 22^nd.  The following four students were the primary investigators for this research:

• Charell Wingfield (left of James Madison)
• Michael Frempong (right of James Madison
• Jan Herburt-Hewell (behind James Madison)
• Michael Dankwa (in front of  James Madison)

Project Summary:

During the first two weeks of the M³ program, the participants will be introduced to discrete equations focusing on both analysis and numerical simulation. The director will present numerous open questions and ask the students to choose a couple on which to concentrate. The entire program (participants and director) will work together to solve the open questions pertaining to two-gender population models.

During the third and fourth week of this research experience, the students will perform a biological investigation of mate choice by male Betta splendens fish using video playback of females.  In this experiment, the students will determine whether males spend more time with and direct more courtship behaviors to a female with vertical lines than to a female without vertical lines.  This experiment will be in addition to the open questions started during the first two weeks.

During the final two weeks of this research experience, the students will conclude their research along with developing a mathematical model of mate choice in Betta splendens. The students will give a 50 minute presentation of their research results on the last day of the program.  After the conclusion of the research experience, the students will disseminate their results in July at the JMU Biology REU poster session, a poster and oral presentation in October at the Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics Conference, and the director will be giving an oral presentation of the results in August at the Society for Mathematical Biology's annual meeting.

Final Presentations - Friday, June 22^nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm in Roop 103

• The influence of Female-Male Interactions on Offspring Sex Selection, Michael Dankwa and Jan Herburt-Hewell
• Infectious Disease Modeling of Human Papillomavirus, Michael Fremprong and Charell Wingfield

Click here to go to Anthony Tongen's webpage.

Thanks again to MAA, NSF-DMS, NSA, and Moody for their generous support of this project!! 

edited on 5/24/07