2021-2022 News

May 5, 2022

Please join us in congratulating our Spring 2022 graduates, as well as celebrating the following students' achievements:

  • Peter Kanjorski: Mugridge Research Symposium Bronze Medal
  • Vanessa Maybruck: Association for Women in Mathematics Platinum Service Award, Kappa Mu Epsilon Award, Mugridge Research Symposium Silver Medal
  • Lindsey Moyer: Association for Women in Mathematics Gold Service Award, J. Dwight Daugherty Award, Student Teaching Award
  • Isaac Reiter: Mathematics Award, Mugridge Research Symposium Gold Medal

Mathematics Graduates

May 2022

Mathematics Awards Ceremony

May 2022

Mathematics Awards Ceremony

May 2022

Graduates
Award Winners
Award Winner
May 5, 2022

Please join us in congratulating the following students on their induction into the Kappa Mu Epsilon National Honorary Mathematics Society:

Matthew Bartlett
Noah Cox
Kira Kern
Richard Laychock
Haley Lewis
Samuel Murray

Kappa Mu Epsilon Members
April 19, 2022

Mathematics major Vanessa Maybruck, has been selected as an award recipient of the extremely prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) in the category of Mathematical Sciences/Mathematical Biology.

The National Science Foundation GRFP award is highly competitive; recipients share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are selected. This fellowship award provides Maybruck with a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 as well as a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees. In addition, it provides access to opportunities for professional development to individuals who are anticipated to become knowledge experts that contribute significantly to research, teaching and innovations in science and engineering.

Maybruck will be pursuing her Applied Mathematics Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Boulder. She will also be enrolling in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology Ph.D. Certificate Program.

For more information, please visit the official KU Press Release.

April 8, 2022

Congratulations to Mathematics majors Vanessa Maybruck and Isaac Reiter, Chambliss Student Academic Achievement Award Gold Medal recipients!

Vanessa Maybruck is an Honors student, a mathematics and mathematics education dual major with a minor in biochemistry graduating in May from Allentown, Pa. Maybruck was awarded the Chambliss Academic Achievement Gold Medal for outstanding service to the university community and successfully completed research project(s). 

Chambliss Gold Medal Winner Vanessa Maybruck

She has been actively involved in multiple organizations on campus, including the Mathematics Department Peer Mentor Program, the Kappa Mu Epsilon Honor Society, the KU Honors Club and the KU Choirs. She has made outstanding contributions to the KU chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and the IOTA chapter of the Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society. She has served as president of AWM for more than two years, where she co-organized and coordinated several events focused on empowering women, celebrating diversity and navigating male-dominated careers as women. It was primarily her leadership that made these events a success. Maybruck has made other significant contributions to the campus community through her efforts to promote disability awareness and improve campus accessibility for individuals with disabilities. She had multiple leadership roles as an active member of Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society for Students with Disabilities (DAP) and is currently president. Under her leadership, DAP members worked to create guidelines for making large scale campus events more accessible to all, where she hopes to publish these guidelines for general campus use. Maybruck is KU's nominee for the State System's Syed R. Ali-Zaidi Award for Academic Excellence. Maybruck plans to obtain her Ph.D. in applied mathematics to become a professor and prolific mathematical modeler.

Isaac Reiter is an Honors student, a mathematics major graduating in May from Fleetwood, Pa. Reiter was awarded the Chambliss Academic Achievement Gold Medal for successfully completed research project(s). Reiter has been an active researcher and presenter in the areas of cryptography, number theory and graph theory. These areas of interest, along with his experience in computer programming, has led to two general research projects. 

Chambliss Gold Medal Winner Isaac Reiter

His work with a project involving playing card cryptosystem led to a new discovery of vulnerabilities in current cryptosystems. His findings allowed him to improve the security of Card Chameleon and has created a new secure and efficient playing card system called VICCard. In his other project that focused on problems of graph theory, a field of discrete mathematics that studies network structure, Reiter has demonstrated an exceptional research ability. He currently has two publications on his research in reputable professional journals, a third publication in an undergraduate journal and has an Honors capstone thesis. He has presented his research at local conferences, graduate student seminars and regional and national professional conferences. Reiter intends to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics and has a goal of becoming a professor.

November 13, 2021

At today's Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware Section (EPaDel) Meeting, Kutztown University mathematics major Isaac Reiter was awarded with the 2021 Student Mathematical Paper Prize!  Isaac's paper, The VICCard Cipher: Our Contribution to the Field of Playing Card Cryptography, was written under the supervision of Kutztown math professor Dr. Eric Landquist.

At the same meeting, Isaac presented a talk on his award winning paper.  Kutztown math professor Dr. Myung Soon Song presented a talk on Variable Selection Using a Metaheuristic Method.

September 9, 2021

Kutztown math major and Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Kutztown chapter president Vanessa Maybruck participated on a panel celebrating the joint 50th anniversaries of both the AWM and the Caucus for Women in Statistics.  Vanessa was chosen by the leaders of the national AWM office as the representative of the "future of AWM”.

AWM-CWS Panel Flyer advertisement
September 1, 2021

Kutztown University's chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) was awarded the Community Outreach Award by the National AWM organization this past fall. This award is given to a student chapter in recognition of its outstanding engagement with the local community.

The KU student chapter of AWM was formed in 2013 to encourage and support women at KU in their mathematical endeavors. Since its establishment, KU AWM has branched out to include events for the entire KU community. Among these events include Women's Empowerment Day and Beyond Pink-Collar Jobs. KU AWM has also hosted events for the greater Kutztown community such as the Mathematics Day for Girls, which was held every January from 2017 to 2020. This event brought local high school and middle school girls to campus, but due to COVID-19, KU AWM was forced to halt their in-person activities. KU AWM continued to provide community engagement with the startup of their virtual lecture series, which features women from around the nation who speak about their mathematical research. This lecture series has had attendees from four different continents.

For more information, please visit the official KU Press Release.