About Us
The VCU Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics has more than 50 full-time faculty members, approximately 15 masters students, 40 Ph.D. students and about 225 undergraduate math majors.
Our department’s members are committed teachers as well as active and productive mathematical researchers, publishing in peer review journals, publishing books, speaking at conferences and seminars regionally, nationally and internationally, reviewing journal articles, organizing conferences and sessions, and collaborating broadly within the mathematical and scientific communities.
Undergraduate Programs
The department offers full-time undergraduate programs leading to the Bachelor of Science. Students may choose from concentrations in applied mathematics, biomathematics, general mathematical sciences, pure mathematics or secondary teacher preparation. The teacher preparation concentration offers, in partnership with the School of Education, a five-year program leading to both an undergraduate major in mathematics and a master’s degree in education.
Graduate Programs
Our graduate courses are small in size and personal in nature.
The department offers full and part-time graduate programs leading to the Master of Mathematical Science. In partnership with the Department of Statistical Science and Operations Research, we offer a Doctor of Philosophy in Systems Modeling and Analysis, which focuses on the development of the mathematical and computational skills used to model and analyze real-world systems.
Faculty
The department is committed to excellence in both research and teaching.
We have particularly strong groups interested in discrete mathematics, biomathematics, geometry and mathematics education. Our tenured/tenure-eligible faculty’s active research currently includes combinatorics, graph theory, linear algebra, optimal control theory, biomathematics, logic and set theory, algebraic geometry, low-dimensional topology, knot theory, string theory and mathematics education.
Other Student Activities
The number of our majors is relatively small, encouraging frequent, friendly and informal contact among faculty and students. We have a chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon, the national math honor society, as well as a Math Club and a Women in Math chapter. Our students interact with the community as well, serving as tutors to local public school students and holding programs allowing local students to spend time in our department and learn about the opportunities in math and at VCU.
Seminars and the Math Colloquium
There are weekly seminars in biomathematics, discrete mathematics, and analysis, logic and physics. Presentations are made by our faculty, visiting mathematicians and our students. In addition, several times a year we bring distinguished speakers to campus to give presentations that are broadly accessible to our own students as well as those outside of the math department.
