Graduate Program, 2024

We are welcoming 11 new graduate students to the Mathematics Ph.D. program this year, and we have 75 Ph.D. students in total in the program. Last year, 11 of our students completed their Ph.D.’s and have continued their journeys in careers in academia and industry.

This also is the start of my second year as vice chair of graduate affairs. Over the last year, I have tried to approach challenges with empathy and a problem solving mentality. Here are some of the initiatives and challenges from the past year.

Graduate Success & Professional Development 

We held a weekly seminar in Fall 2023 and several events at need afterward. This year we will hold events throughout the year, approximately once a month, in order to discuss professional development topics, milestone expectations, skills to build as a graduate student, and challenges that grads commonly encounter. Our first meeting this year was at the end of September, giving advice to students about application materials for academic jobs.

Vice Chair Office Hours

I hold regular appointment office hours every Tuesday afternoon to allow individual or groups of students to ask questions, share their concerns, or talk through how to get through a particular barrier. I have learned a lot about difficulties some of our students have faced, tried to spread useful information on resources and program expectations, and worked with individual students on plans to get and stay on track with their milestones towards their Ph.D..

Graduate Student Funding

We have been told to expect reductions in the number of TA positions in the 2025-26 academic year based on budget constraints. While we hope these are not too severe, we are trying to prepare. Correspondingly, we have admitted slightly smaller cohorts this year and in the upcoming cycle, and are working to keep students on track towards their graduation deadlines. 

External Funding

Our program was successfully awarded a GAANN (Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need)! This grant from the Department of Education provides fellowships for Ph.D. students with demonstrated financial need. Together with dedicated mentoring and recruiting efforts by our faculty, this funding will help us support a talented and diverse group of graduate students. 

Recruitment

Together with the Graduate Program Committee (GPC) members, we are working on targeted recruiting efforts to increase the number of highly qualified and diverse students applying to UC Davis. I attended the Cal-Bridge conference in September to tell these students about our program. We have plans to host tables at grad fairs at other conferences this year, such as the Field of Dreams conference in Atlanta in November, and the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle in January.

Admissions

We reviewed 184 applicants to our program in the last cycle, and admitted 32, of which 11 have joined us. With input from GPC, I continue to work to improve our reviewing processes to be fair, effective, and efficient. To align ourselves with our peer institutions and avoid losing talented potential applicants, we have modified our Subject GRE requirement to optional, and this will be in effect in this year’s admissions cycle.

I look forward to another year of finding ways to help our current and potential students to realize their goals and enjoy learning mathematics.