This project will support the first three years of the Intermountain/Southwest Conference on Industrial and Interdisciplinary Mathematics to be held at Utah State University, Colorado State University, and Arizona State University. The conference series, which will rotate among these institutions on an annual basis, would provide both a venue for the presentation of problems in industrial and interdisciplinary mathematics and a forum for the discussion of ways to broaden the traditional curriculum in order to prepare mathematicians for industrial and interdisciplinary positions. The conferences would bring together researchers from both academia and industry, enabling cross- fertilization between the programs in the Intermountain/Southwest region, and providing a venue for the students to present their work and interact with other students, faculty, and representatives from industry.
The first of these annual meetings will be held at Utah State University in Logan, UT in February 2002. The two-day meeting will include sessions for invited talks by researchers from academia and industry, a round-table discussion involving faculty and industry representatives, sessions of shorter contributed talks and/or poster sessions, a special session involving only graduate students, and an informational session for undergraduates. The round-table discussion would focus on (a) integrating the needs of local industry into the mathematics curriculum and (b) current research activities in the region. For the first meeting, representatives from the Boeing Company have already agreed to attend and individuals at Motorola, Intel, IBM, and Hewlett Packard have been approached. Participation is also expected by faculty members from departments of physics, electrical and computer engineering, computer science, and industrial engineering. Faculty and students from other universities in the region and from broader areas will be invited to attend.
This conference series will be jointly supported by the Applied Mathematics Program and the Infrastructure Program of the Division of Mathematical Sciences and by the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities of the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
