math education

It has been another busy year for our undergraduate mathematics programs, with many exciting changes on the horizon. This year, our Undergraduate Program Committee is leading teams of faculty members in a review of all four of our majors – Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Analytics and Operations Research, and Scientific Computation – with a view towards modernizing and improving what our current programs offer. The intent is to both add breadth to our current course offering, and to add support to mathematics students in the form of discussions across all of our classes.

Anna Zarkh received her Mathematics Education Ph.D. in May 2024 from the University of California, Berkeley. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Mathematics from Bar Ilan University in Israel. Anna’s research focuses on university mathematics education, specializing in socio-cultural theories, discourse analysis, and micro-ethnographic methods. She is interested in the historical development and effects of communication practices in contemporary academic mathematics.

In the years 1992-94, the University of California offered a golden handshake under the acronym VERIP. In 1994, having twice refused the lure, I signed up for VERIP III, making 2024 my 30th year of retirement.

George Thomas Sallee died unexpectedly in the early evening of Saturday, June 15, 2019, at the UCD Medical Center of hemorrhagic stroke.

Tom was born in Nyssa, a little farming community in eastern Oregon on the banks of the Snake River. He worked in the sugar beet fields and packing shed, became an Eagle Scout, and enjoyed a very happy childhood. 

Evelyn Silvia, professor of mathematics at UC Davis, died peacefully in her sleep early in the morning of January 21, 2006, at Woodland Memorial Hospital, following a courageous battle with ovarian cancer.

She was born on February 8th, 1948 in Fall River, Massachusetts. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1973 from Clark University. In 1973 she joined the faculty at UC Davis, where she spent her entire career as a professor of mathematics. She is survived by her husband Doyle Cutler, a professor emeritus of Mathematics at UC Davis.