Those with the biggest biases choose first

August 12, 2024

Quick decisions are more likely influenced by initial biases, resulting in faulty conclusions, while decisions that take time are more likely the result in better information, according to new research led by applied mathematicians at the University of Utah.

A team that included Sean Lawley, an associate professor of mathematics, and three former or current Utah graduate students used the power of numbers to test a decision-making model long used in psychology.

They developed a framework to study the decision-making processes in groups of people holding various levels of bias.

“In large populations, what we see is that slow deciders are making more accurate decisions,” said lead author Samantha Linn, a graduate student in mathematics. “One way to explain that is that they’re taking more time to accumulate more evidence, and they’re getting a complete picture of everything they could possibly understand about the decision before they make it.”

The findings were reported this week in the journal Physical Review E.

The researchers explored how initial biases of individuals, or “agents,” in a group affect the order and accuracy of their choices. The goal was to determine whether a decision was driven mainly by an agent’s predisposition as opposed to accumulated evidence.

They found, in short, the faster the decision was made, the less informed it was and more likely to be wrong.

“Their decisions align with their initial bias, regardless of the underlying truth. In contrast, agents who decide last make decisions as if they were initially unbiased, and hence make better choices,” the study states. “Our analysis shows how bias, information quality, and decision order interact in non-trivial ways to determine the reliability of decisions in a group.”

Read the full story by Brian Maffly in @TheU.

The College of Science Welcomes New Faculty Fellows

June 12, 2024

The College of Science welcomes Associate Professor Lauren Birgenheier and Professor Akil Narayan as its inaugural class of Faculty Fellows. By working closely with colleagues on key projects, the new Fellows Program is designed to develop emerging academic leaders who are interested in learning more about college administration.

Lauren Birgenheier

Birgenheier is a sedimentary geologist and geochemist. Her research studies fluvial, shallow marine and lacustrine systems, shedding light on the processes that shaped our planet's past with a view toward implications for energy development, critical mineral exploration, carbon storage and paleoclimate reconstruction. Previously, Birgenheier served as Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Chair for the Department of Geology & Geophysics.

Akil Narayan

Narayan is an applied mathematician specializing in numerical analysis. As a member of the University of Utah's Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, his broad research agenda at the forefront of computational innovation includes machine learning, model reduction and uncertainty quantification, among others. Narayan has previously held many departmental and university roles, including serving on an Academic Senate subcommittee and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Department of Mathematics.

"Lauren and Akil are exceptional scholars and leaders," said Dean Peter Trapa. "Their diverse expertise, coupled with their commitment to excellence, will be put to good use in these new Faculty Fellow roles. I look forward to working with them both."

Aftermath 2024

May 20, 2024

Getting Stuff Done: Thomas Yassmin

May 20, 2024

Balancing football and academics was challenging, but Yassmin performed this balancing act well, earning a spot on the PAC-12 Academic Honor Roll multiple times during his five years at the U.

Yassmin has advice for other students balancing busy schedules: "You've just got to prioritize certain things. There are a lot of sacrifices that have to be made. Sometimes weekends are just not the weekends you want to have, or your friends ask you to come over and you just have to suck it up and put your head down for a couple hours and get your work done first before you do anything else. Little things add up, an hour here, an hour there, dedicating times where it's undistracted work. By the end of the week, it accumulates. I think that's the thing, just sacrificing certain amounts of time to make sure you get your stuff done first."

Yassmin was fortunate to have had some stellar professors, especially Lajos Horvath, from whom he took multiple classes, and Tom Alberts, his project advisor. They understood his unique position and helped him navigate the balancing act between athletics and math. Yassmin expressed that he probably wouldn't have made it through his MStat degree without them.

Read the rest of Thomas's story by Angie Gardiner at math.utah.edu.

Math Faculty Retiree Jim Keener

May 13, 2024

Math Faculty Retiree Jim Keener

THE RETIREMENT OF DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR JIM KEENER LEAVES AN UNFILLABLE HOLE IN THE WORLD-RENOWNED MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY PROGRAM THAT HE DID SO MUCH TO BUILD.

Or at least would if he was not planning to continue to provide wisdom and insight to students and faculty alike from his office where the door (and minds) is (are) always open.

Jim joined the University of Utah faculty in the Department of Mathematics in 1978 and started a research program that set the standard for mathematical biology by combining creative modeling built on the devilish details of complex biological phenomena with development of the new mathematics needed to understand those models and answer biological questions. His highly influential work on spiral waves emerged from his interest in cardiac arrythmias, and his perhaps even more influential work on ranking (which inspired the first version of Google’s original PageRank algorithm) emerged from his interest in college football.

His three books, Principles of Applied Mathematics (1988), Mathematical Physiology (with James Sneyd, and winner of the 1998 Association of American Publishers’ “Best New Title in Mathematics”), and the new Biology in Time and Space: A PDE Modelling Approach (2021) are paragons of exposition and laid the foundation for the rigorous and deep applied mathematics that underlie any serious quantitative study of biology.

Jim is the visionary leader for the U’s graduate program in mathematical biology. The success of this program reflects his own strengths: inspiring mentorship, biological and mathematical breadth, the joy of collaboration, ability to communicate with both mathematicians and biologists, and the taste to identify and solve important problems. The reach of this program is extraordinary, with graduates holding leadership roles in research universities, liberal arts colleges, industry, and in the mathematical biology community. Students in the program today have a built-in international network of friends, colleagues and mentors.

Like most people who get this much done, Jim is fun to be around. His “cabin parties” are legendary, although what actually happens there can never be revealed. Dinner with Jim is a delightful mix of challenging debate and convivial laughs. His joy in inquiry and in people builds on a deep spirituality and love of nature that underpin the wisdom that we look forward to sharing for many more years.

by Fred Adler
Professor of mathematics and Director of the School of Biological Sciences

Of Honeybees and Carbon Emissions: SIAM Modeling Competition

May 13, 2024

Of Honeybees and Carbon Emissions

LAST NOVEMBER, THE U’S STUDENT CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY FOR INDUSTRIAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS (SIAM) HELD A MODELING COMPETITION FOR UNDERGRADUATES.

Teams chose one of three modeling problems that were based on real-world situations and worked together to analyze the problem, generate figures and results, and write a report about their findings.

The reward for the winning team was their registration fee, paid-in-full, for the COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) in February 2024. The U’s SIAM student chapter hosted this competition to help participants prepare for the MCM and give them confidence in their abilities as scientific modelers.

Two teams participated in the contest, one with two members, Maxwell Archibald and Jack Perry, and another team with three members, Joshua Villarreal, Garrett Iverson and Dominic Cinaglia. Archibald and Perry studied the population dynamics of honeybees and won first place with their thorough and well-organized report while Villarreal, Iverson and Cinaglia looked at CO₂levels and their correlation with climate change which won second place for their strong statistical analysis and informative report. The judges were so impressed with the quality of both teams’ submissions they decided to fund both for the MCM in February.

The U SIAM student chapter is extremely grateful for the financial support of the Department of Mathematics, without which the chapter would not have been able to fund these five deserving students.

Aaron L. Fogelson

In late March SIAM also announced the 2024 Class of SIAM Fellows. The group includes Aaron L. Fogelson, professor of mathematics, recognized for pioneering work on mathematical modeling and numerical methods for platelet aggregation and blood clotting. Through their various contributions, SIAM Fellows help advance the fields of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science. Read more about Fogelson’s recognition here.

Distinguished Professor: Davar Khoshnevisan

May 1, 2024

Khoshnevisan’s research in probability theory spans three sub-concentrations: mathematical statistics, multi-parameter random processes, and stochastic partial differential equations. These topics are mathematically sophisticated yet have immediate applicability in engineering and applied sciences. His work in mathematical statistics is used in high dimensional data analysis, while his research in stochastic partial differential equations has been used to model the intermittency properties of sunspot phenomena over time. His work on multi-parameter random processes led to the resolution of several long-standing conjectures on fractal properties of random fields, some of which dated back to the 1930s.

A prolific author of over 135 research papers that have been cited over 1,800 times, fully one-quarter of Khoshnevisan’s articles have appeared in Annals of Probability or Probability Theory and Related Fields, the most well-regarded journals in the field.

Additionally, Khoshnevisan is known as an excellent expositor. His textbook Probability is used in graduate-level probability courses across the country, and his monograph Multiparameter Processes is the standard in the field. His upcoming book Gaussian Analysis is intended for beginning researchers. He has also served in an editorial role for several prestigious journals.

Related to his publications, Khoshnevisan has received numerous accolades in recognition of his prodigious research output and his professional service, including in 1998 the Rollo Davidson prize. In 2015 he was made a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and in 2020 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Then, in 2018 he was recognized as a Medallion Lecturer at the Institute of Mathematical Statistics’ annual conference.

Of special note is Khoshnevisan’s mentorship of young mathematicians. At least 50 of his research articles are jointly authored with his postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. At the U, Khoshnevisan has directly supervised 14 postdoctoral fellows, 10 PhD students, and nine master's of statistics students.

Khoshnevisan has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation since 1997, with his most recent grant extending into 2026. This is a remarkable achievement given the exponential increase in probability research during that period and is an extraordinary validation of his research program. Equally impressive is that he was able to maintain his research funding while taking on the additional responsibilities of department chair. In 2020 alone, while chair and managing the pandemic, he published five remarkable articles on spatial ergodicity of solutions to stochastic partial differential equations. Already this work is being recognized as fundamentally important in the field.

“I am thrilled that Davar Khoshnevisan has been selected as a Distinguished Professor for the 2023-24 academic year,” says Department Chair Tommaso de Fernex. “This is a great accomplishment and well deserved recognition.”

by Tom Alberts

Goldwater Scholars 2024

April 17, 2024

Two College of Science students awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for 2024-25

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is a prestigious award given to undergraduate sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research careers. Goldwater Scholars often go on to hold distinguished research and leadership positions across many disciplines. For the 2024-2025 academic year, 438 scholarships were awarded to college students across the country. At the University of Utah, two undergraduate students have earned the honor of becoming Goldwater Scholars: Muskan Walia and Nathan Patchen.

Nathen Patchen
Biochemistry

“Biochemistry was a great way for me to combine my love of biology and chemistry and understand not only how things work, but why,” says Nathan Patchen about what motivated him to pursue research in that field. Patchen was awarded the Goldwater Scholarship for his work in Yang Liu’s lab, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine.

Patchen describes his research as broadly being focused on DNA damage repair. He says “[w]e have access to revolutionary gene editing tools that, when used in conjunction with advanced imaging techniques, allow us to explore how cancer cells undergo DNA damage repair as never seen before. Personally, I am doing this by implementing a modified CRISPR-Cas9 that allows us to capture time-resolved images after damage and then produce data about the kinetics of repair.”

After graduating from the U, Patchen hopes to pursue an MD/PhD to practice medicine while continuing his research on gene editing and aging. Outside of his time in the lab, he enjoys being active through swimming, biking, and running as he trains for an IRONMAN 70.3 in St. George, Utah in May.

Muskan Walia
Mathematics
Philosophy

“Mathematics is at the cusp of interdisciplinary research” says Muskan Walia. During the College of Science ACCESS Scholars research program, she reflected on her academic interests and goals. She explains, "I wasn’t interested in studying any discipline in a vacuum or in isolation. Rather, I wanted to work on mathematics research that centered justice and informed public policy.”

The majority of Walia’s undergraduate research sprouted from her time in ACCESS where with the help of Fred Adler in the mathematics department at the College of Science, she began to adapt an epidemiological SIR model to predict the number of cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. Since then, she has created other models to further answer her questions about disease. These include a “... model of disease progression within an infected individual, a model of an antigen test, and a model of symptoms to evaluate how testing can be used to limit the spread of infection.”

“Ultimately, I want to lead a team that utilizes mathematical principles to tackle the most pressing social justice related questions of our time.” Walia is one of 57 awardees honored this year who intend to pursue research in mathematics or computer science. Besides innovating mathematical models, Walia enjoys spending time outside bird watching with her mom and gardening with her grandmother.

By Lauren Wigod
Science Writer Intern

2024 Class of SIAM Fellows: Aaron L. Fogelson

April 5, 2024

This year's 26 esteemed fellows were nominated in recognition of their outstanding research and service to the community. Through their various contributions, SIAM Fellows form a crucial group of individuals helping to advance the fields of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science.

A professor of mathematics at the U, Fogelson, who lists his research interests as mathematical physiology, modeling of blood clotting, gels and viscoelastic fluids and numerical solution of partial differential equations (PDEs), is being recognized by SIAM for his pioneering work on mathematical modeling and numerical methods for platelet aggregation and blood clotting.

"Clotting is an extremely complex process with physical, chemical, and cell biological components which is essential to maintaining the integrity of our circulatory system," he writes on his faculty profile. "When it malfunctions the consequences can be dire, including heart attack and stroke. Clotting is subject to intense research by laboratory and medical scientists but its complexity makes it very difficult to think through how it works or to make predictions about how well medical interventions to treat clotting problems will work. That is where mathematics and the work I do comes in."

On his lab's website, Fogelson writes, "Because transmural pressure differences vary greatly in the circulatory system and because blood flowing at different speeds through vessels of widely varying diameter leads to great variation in shear stress, the challenges of forming a blood clot to stop the outflow of blood differ substantially in different vascular beds. The system that has evolved to cope with these disparate challenges involves the aggregation of cells (platelets) and the formation of fibrous protein gel (fibrin). In addition, there is a complex, powerful, and tightly regulated enzyme network (the coagulation system) involving reactions on the surfaces of activated platelets, that leads to production of an enzyme, thrombin, that is key both in activating platelets so they can cohere to one another and in forming the protein fibrin from which the fibrin mesh is constructed."

40 Years of Modeling Clotting

The Fogelson research group has been developing models of many of the disparate aspects of blood clotting for close to 40 years. "We have built and analyzed models based on PDEs, ODEs [ordinary differential equations], or SDEs [stochastic differential equations] and, as needed, we have developed novel numerical methods with which to study the PDE-based models," writes Fogelson.

Projects of current interest in this research space includes, first, developing ODE-based compartment models of platelet deposition and coagulation under flow that treat developing thrombi as porous materials and which can track resulting flow, the growth of aggregates, and the biochemistry of platelet signaling and coagulation from the initiation of clot formation through vessel occlusion. The goal is a high-throughput simulation tool that will allow extensive investigation of model behavior as model parameters and other inputs are varied to reflect different physiological situations and disease states.

A second project of interest is integrating the Fogelson lab's models of fibrin polymerization with models of platelet deposition and coagulation under flow during arterial thrombosis, to produce a more comprehensive model of the clot formation process.

Fogelson has been a faculty member at the U since 1986 after earning his PhD at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and working as a post doctoral researcher at first the University of California, Berkeley and then the Courant Institute. In addition to his faculty position in the U's Department of Mathematics, he is adjunct professor of biomedical engineering, and was Associate Dean for Research of the College of Science in the period 2014-17. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and/or the National Institutes of Health continuously since 1982.

Read about all 26 SIAM fellows announced here.

Utah Symposium in Science & Literature

March 27, 2024

Claudia Rankine is the author of “Citizen: An American Lyric,” a New York Times bestseller, as well as four other books of poetry and three plays. She is the founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute, an NEA fellow, a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and a professor at NYU. Brian Greene is renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory and is known to the public through his books, “The Elegant Universe,” “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” and “The Hidden Reality,” which have collectively spent 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. He is a professor of physics and mathematics and the director of Columbia University’s Center for Theoretical Physics. Bevil Conway is a senior investigator at the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health, and an expert on the neuroscience of color. His artwork is in the Boston Public Library, the Fogg University Art Rental Collection, the N.I.H. Building 35 Public Art Collection, and many private collections.

The Utah Symposium returns this year after a long Covid hiatus, and will feature the involvement of U professors and grad students from numerous departments and disciplines, from English to math to music to philosophy. The theme of this year’s Symposium is “Mere Beauty,” a topic arising from the reexaminations of beauty occurring not only in the arts and humanities, but also in biology, where dominant theories about the possible evolutionary purposes of beauty are being questioned.

Co-chairs Fred Adler, Professor of Biology and Mathematics, and Katharine Coles, Distinguished Professor of English, developed the Symposium’s theme together. Coles explains, “In some ways, the topic of Beauty as a topic of interdisciplinary discussion and examination seems very abstract. However, I think it has become my favorite Symposium topic so far. It seems to touch on every discipline and, in many ways, on every aspect of our lives. Nature seems to have built us to respond to beauty; it’s hard not to wonder why.”

College of Science

math-news

Those with the biggest biases choose first

How our biases are reflected in how fast we make decisions

Quick decisions more likely flow from biases, while people who take longer make better decisions, according to study led by Utah mathematicians.

The College of Science Welcomes New Faculty Fellows

THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE WELCOMES NEW FACULTY FELLOWS

Geologist and mathematician to serve during the coming academic year.

Aftermath 2024

Aftermath 2024

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Getting Stuff Done: Thomas Yassmin

Getting Stuff Done

Thomas Yassmin

As an undergraduate, Yassmin completed a double major in quantitative analysis of markets and organizations (QAMO) and mathematics with an emphasis in statistics. This spring he graduated with a master's in statistics.

Math Faculty Retiree Jim Keener

Math Faculty Retiree Jim Keener

THE RETIREMENT OF DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR JIM KEENER LEAVES AN UNFILLABLE HOLE IN THE WORLD-RENOWNED MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY PROGRAM THAT HE DID SO MUCH TO BUILD.

Of Honeybees and Carbon Emissions: SIAM Modeling Competition

Of Honeybees and Carbon Emissions

LAST NOVEMBER, THE U’S STUDENT CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY FOR INDUSTRIAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS (SIAM) HELD A MODELING COMPETITION FOR UNDERGRADUATES.

Distinguished Professor: Davar Khoshnevisan

davar khoshnevisan, Distinguished Professor

Goldwater Scholars 2024

Goldwater Scholars 2024

Two College of Science students awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for 2024-25

2024 Class of SIAM Fellows: Aaron L. Fogelson

2024 Class of SIAM Fellows: Aaron L. Fogelson

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has honored Aaron L. Fogelson's distinguished work with its fellows program.

40 Years of Modeling Clotting

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Utah Symposium in Science & Literature

Utah Symposium in Science and Literature

Poet Claudia Rankine, physicist Brian Greene, and neuroscientist and artist Bevil Conway are the keynote speakers for this year’s Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, taking place from April 10-12 at the Eccles Alumni House on campus.

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