Newsletter for Alumni and Friends of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Lebanon Valley College
Congratulations Patrick!
Read more about their interdisciplinary, collaborative faculty-student research on the Mathematical Physics web pages.
Chris Brazfield passed actuarial exam FM in spring 2006.
Mike Fry supervised three successful internships this summer, by rising senior Computer Science majors Pete Howells '07, Bryon Laird '07, and Scott Ferguson '07 . Pete interned with JP Morgan Chase in Camp Hill, Bryon with BroadCom in Lancaster, and Scott with Brandimation in Morrisville.
Bryan Hearsey was on sabbatical leave for spring semester 2006. He has spent this time studying financial economics to prepare for the recent modifications in the professional actuarial societies education and examination program. Unrelated to the sabbatical Bryan and wife Carolyn spent the month of March in Australia and New Zealand. Bryan attended the Actuarial Research Conference at the University of Montreal in August.
David Lyons: In collaboration with Richard Hammack of Virginia Commonwealth University, Lyons recently published "The Alternating Series Test--Visual Proof" in Oxford Journals Online: Teaching Mathematics and its Applications. The article appears in the July 2006 issue, Volume 25, Number 2.
The Howe-Lyons family had an eventful and fun summer at home, hosting a French exchange student, watching many hours of FIFA World Cup, and playing many hours of pickup ultimate frisbee and soccer with the local neighborhood and LVC summer resident crowd.
Joerg Mayer (emeritus): "I am still writing reviews for CHOICE magazine, a publication of the American Library Association. The books range all over the place from lightweights that fit only on a coffee table (that one was published by the MAA and their editor complained sorely to my editor at the ALA, denigrating my mathematical knowledge and reviewing savvy. Problem was, that I had pointed out an error which illuminated the carefree writing, the editor took me to task `Moreover, the reviewer, who presumably is trained in mathematics, surely does not mean to imply that the author uses the law of cosines to prove the Pythagoras theorem' and I cited the sentence where the author had done exactly that) to Chaos theory, both mathematical and for the general public, including one which described a society on one of the moons of Jupiter (I think) which was entirely governed by non-linear principles. Wonderful book. A great biography of Tarski, a book on `Xevents', another one `Euclid in the rain forest'. Normally 5 books a year, but less this year so far."
Mark Townsend and wife Judy looking forward to a wedding in Taipei, Taiwan during Thanksgiving break. Brian, Judy's son, is marrying a young lady he met while working for Ernst and Young out of Taipei. Brian has since moved to Frankfurt, but German immigration procedures will apparently prevent his bride's moving to Germany until a couple of months after the wedding!
John (Jack) Gregory '66: "After teaching high school for four years, then getting my doctorate at Ohio State, I will be completing my 35th year teaching here at the University of Florida. I plan to retire and keep active on my Christmas tree farm (yes, they do raise Christmas trees in Florida!). My accomplishments are 11 books, numerous articles, over 300 workshop presentations, and foreign travel to have folks in the American schools in Greece, Pakistan and India learn more about mathematics education. I am indebted to Barney Bissinger and Pete Henning for their sharing of their wealth of knowledge with me at the Valley."
Karen (Nester) Schmitt '80: "I've had a couple of positions since graduating in 1980, but the most recent, since 1999 is with GMAC Re, a subsidiary of GMAC which focuses on reinsurance, with premium writings of about $700 million. I am the Executive Vice President and Chief Actuary and have responsibility for our treaty production units as well as the actuarial department. On a personal note, I remarried in 1997, have two grown children, ages 27 and 23. My classmates may remember my son, Josh, as an occasional visitor to the classroom during my senior year, and Dr. Hearsey may remember that he returned to participate in the summer actuarial internship program a number of years ago. Josh became a father last month, so I very happily answering to the name Grandma these days.....I went back to school a couple of years ago and completed the Executive MBA program at Wharton. What an amazing experience!! "
Jason Clay '04: "I found out I passed CAS Exam 7 in late June, which made me eligible to become an ACAS. If all goes well with my application I will officially be an ACAS sometime in August. Other than that I'm slowly moving up the ranks at The Hartford Company. I guess my new title will be Actuarial Associate and now I have recruiters calling me like once a week. If any LVC alum are looking for jobs there are plenty LVC alum up in the Hartford area and we'd love to have 'em. Anyways, I guess in summary I'd like to let readers of Aftermath that I recently attainted my ACAS and am still working at The Hartford."
Nick Hamblet '04: "I received my Masters in math from UVa this spring. This summer I attended a conference on the calculus of functors, held in Lens, France. This also gave me an opportunity to wander around France for a while. After returning from France, I adopted two kittens from the local SPCA. This fall I will continue my studies at UVa, working toward a Ph.D."
Justin Albert '05: "I bought a house in West Hartford, and have been living there for over a month now. Also, I got a puppy (American Eskimo - Poddle mix) just last week. He is a handful, but is the sweetest animal ever. Those two things have taken any free time that I may have had in between exams!"
Kristen Augustine '05: "I currently work for Beyer-Barber Company, an actuarial consulting firm in Allentown, PA. I work on defined benefit pension plans, preparing actuarial valuation reports and government form filings. This past May I passed Exam P and I am beginning to study the material for the next exam."
Jeff Slomski '06: "I'm currently working for ING U.S. Financial Services in Hartford, within their Asset/Liability Management area. Specifically I work in the modeling team to simulate our retirement services business and determine our risk position in future years. I just passed Course M this past May so I'm done with the preliminary exams and I'll be sitting for the FAP 1&2 exams hopefully in January."