Program Description
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics is a large, diverse, and active organization. The department’s mission is to provide excellent instruction, conduct high-quality research and scholarly activity, and prepare graduates and provide mathematical and statistical services that are both regionally relevant and internationally competitive. The department offer students the opportunity to pursue master’s and doctoral level graduate studies in a collegial environment with small class sizes and high faculty-student interaction and research activity.
Master of Science
The focus of the MS in Mathematics Program is the development of sophisticated mathematical models and their implementation on high performance computing platforms. The curriculum features a balance of application, computation, and theory with particular emphasis in the areas of operations research, computational science, and the development of probabilistic and deterministic models. Areas of faculty and graduate student research activity include computational biology, computational finance, molecular dynamics simulation, operations research, optimization, and Ramsey theory. The program is particularly effective at preparing graduates to work in business, industry, or government as well as preparing students to continue on to the CSS PhD or other PhD program.
The focus of the MS in Statistics Program is the development of sophisticated statistical models and their implementation on high performance computing platforms. The curriculum features a balance of application, computation, and theory with particular emphasis in the areas of biostatistics/informatics and analytics. Areas of faculty and graduate student research activity include bioinformatics, biostatistics, business and financial analytics, forensic statistics, and general statistics. The program is particularly effective at preparing graduates to work in business, industry, or government as well as preparing students to continue on to the CSS PhD or other PhD program.
Doctor of Philosophy
The Computational Science and Statistics Ph.D. program is designed to train students to integrate computational and statistical methodologies to formulate, model, analyze, and solve research problems of interest to the natural, physical, and social sciences, including biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, geography/GIS, pharmacy, medicine, economics, and finance. Broadly speaking, the program has strong research components in biostatistics, bioinformatics, and computational methods. More specifically, the program leads to research in a variety of areas that may include: artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic modeling, biological modeling, bioinformatics, biostatistics, computational biology, computational chemistry, computational mathematics, computational statistics, computational physics, computational finance, computer science, data visualization and data mining, ecological modeling, spatial-temporal data modeling, and transport processes.
Student Support and Engagement Opportunities
The department has graduate research and teaching assistantships and fellowships are available for a number of qualified applicants.
Facilities and Services
The department offices are located in Harding Hall. The Math Help Center, located in Harding Hall 128 and in the Biostress Basement 0020, provides free walk-in tutoring for students in several undergraduate courses.
