Some people wear many hats; in Dave Taylor’s case, two of them are chairs. Dave, who chairs the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics, is now chair-elect of the Maryland-DC-Virginia section of the Mathematical Association of America. Dave was elected to this position at the section meeting at Montgomery College (Md) April 15-16.
It was a great meeting for Dave, who also gave a keynote talk titled “A Potpourri of Mathematics in Popular Games.” This entertaining and well-received talk focused on the mathematics of Yahtzee, Blackjack, and Monopoly as analyzed in Dave’s book The Mathematics of Games. The Blackjack discussion included the award-winning work done by Jon Marino and Dave, which applies some highly theoretical work on compositions to the world of Blackjack.
The student team of Taylor Ferebee, Justin Giguere, and Anderson Lidz finished a strong fourth in the Math Jeopardy competition. Other attendees were students Jason Karaffa and Beckie Muolo and faculty Maggie Rahmoeller and Roland Minton, who gave a talk on “Modeling March Madness.”
Roanoke College has an important presence in the MAA, which is the primary national mathematics organization focused on undergraduate mathematics. Along with Chair-elect Dave Taylor, Karin Saoub is the newsletter editor and Roland Minton and Maggie Rahmoeller serve on the teaching award committee.
Next up is the MathFest meeting in August in Columbus, Ohio. This will be the ninth year in a row that a Roanoke College student will present research at MathFest!
