Nancy D. Anderson
On behalf of the Award Committee, I am pleased to announce the two winning teams for the Nancy D. Anderson Undergraduate Research Awards. These awards celebrate excellence in research and writing among undergraduate students studying mathematics at the University of Illinois and encourage the use of library resources and services.
The Award Committee received multiple applications for this year’s awards. All submissions demonstrated impressive quality, and each application was evaluated in four categories: innovation and originality of research; excellence and clarity in writing and interpretation; quality of analysis and potential contribution to scholarship; and the depth and breadth of the use of library resources. The two teams listed below stood out in every category.
As head of the Mathematics Library, I especially appreciated their citation to and use of existing literature and research. Scholars today are increasingly reliant on digital publication formats, and the University’s Mathematics Library works diligently to license and acquire comprehensive access to online scholarly mathematics research as the digital tools (e.g., MathSciNet) that support their discovery and use. I commend both teams for the strong and effective use of library resources.
Congratulations to this year’s two winning teams:
Team 1: Benchmarking Optimization Methods in Quantum Information Theory
Undergraduate Scholars: Tingyu Wu, David Huerta, and Zhiyuan Ma
Project Leaders: Sujeet Bhalerao
Faculty Mentor: Professor Felix Leditzky
Team 2: Searching for Optimal Symplectic Maps
Undergraduate Scholars: Eli Berry, Tianyang Ma, Alex Ware, Eleven Yan
Project Leaders: Aline Leite, Yefei Zhang
Faculty Mentor: Professor Ely Kerman
The Award Committee commends all participants for their hard work and dedication, which made this 2nd annual awards a success. We also recognize the faculty members and graduate student mentors who guided these undergraduate scholars throughout their research journey.
Each team will receive $1,000. These awards are funded by the Nancy D. Anderson Mathematics Library Endowment Fund, which was established in 2024 in honor of Professor Nancy D. Anderson, Head of the Mathematics Library at UIUC from 1972 to 2000.
Sincerely yours,
Award Committee:
Bruce Reznick, Ph.D.
Karen Mortensen, Ph.D.
Timothy Cole, Former Head of the Mathematics Library
Sarah G. Park, Head of the Mathematics Library