Current Faculty Research

Math Happenings

Old Main staircase

Promotion from Associate Professor to Professor

Suho Oh

Old Main stairway

Promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor & Tenure

Hamilton Hardison and Cody Patterson

Closeup of LBJ statue face

Promotion from Associate Professor of Instruction to Professor of Instruction

Bikai Nie and Amanda Walker

UAC Arch

Promotion from Assistant Professor of Instruction to Associate Professor of Instruction

Pritha Chakraborty, Jaroslaw Jaracz and Jackson Rebrovich

Students walking up the quad toward a statue of stallions

Promotion from Lecturer to Assistant Professor of Instruction

Hyun Chul Jang, Yichen Ma, Amy Lawrence-Wallquist, and Le Tran

@TXST Math

Upcoming Events

– until Nov. 6
Location:
DERR 238; 238
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Illona Weber
ih10@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Math CATS is here to assist in almost all MATH courses for free!  If you're intimidated by the subject, come in and let's problem solve together.  Tutors are here to help reiterate, reinforce and help you relate to the content you heard in lecture. NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED! Click here for more information
more about event
–
Location:
Zoom
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Vera Ioudina
vi11@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Assessing hidden states in Basketball Player athletic outcomes and training 
Rasim Musal 
Texas State University

Abstract: This seminar addresses the challenge of estimating the hidden states of athletes within a
"small n, large p" framework characterized by weak signal to noise ratios. We begin with an
introduction to Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and the probabilistic foundations underlying filtering
and smoothing calculations. We proceed to evaluate three parameter estimation and state inference
techniques, comparing simulation outcomes across models with known parameters, those estimated
via the Baum-Welch algorithm, and those that fit using a fully Bayesian approach. Finally, we apply this
Bayesian framework to data from the Texas State University women’s basketball team to generate state
predictions and draw parameter inferences regarding player training and athletic performance.
Click here for more information
more about event
– until Nov. 6
Location:
DERR 329; 329
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Ellen Couvillion
ebr21@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
TalkMath2Me is a seminar for students and by students organized by Pi Mu Epsilon. Talk Math 2 Me provides students, both graduate and undergraduate, an opportunity to present anything related to mathematics to an audience of their peers. The talks can be 15-90 minutes long. Past topics have included talks on impressive student research, famous mathematicians, sports, puzzles and games, and time travel! Click here for more information
more about event
–
Location:
DERR 330; 330
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Ray Treinen
treinen@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Ray Treinen will continue a mini course on radial basis functions.  We will have some theoretical results, but the primary goal of this mini course is to develop an understanding of how to use these functions in an interpolation scheme suitable for approximating solutions to partial differential equations.
– until Nov. 6
Location:
DERR 336; 336
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Logan Greenland
logan.greenland@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
This is a learning seminar intended for discussion and questions throughout, and no prior knowledge is assumed!
Location:
Online Only
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Xiaoxi Shen
rcd67@txstate.edu
Title: Proximal Transport Divergences for Robust Generative Modeling
Abstract: Generative modeling involves finding mappings from simple to sample reference distributions to complex target distributions. In practical application, these target distributions may be quite singular or may not have a density at all, making finding generative flows for them difficult. Proximal optimal transport (OT) divergences are a novel class of discrepancy measures that interpolate between information divergences and OT distances. These divergences provide a principled foundation for the proximal optimization methods commonly used in generative modeling. We establish that these divergences possess key mathematical properties: smoothness, boundedness, and computational tractability. We then demonstrate that generative flows trained with these divergences are well-posed with desirable regularity properties, making them particularly effective for learning distributions on low-dimensional manifolds while maintaining stable and robust training dynamics. Finally, we apply these robust generative models to likelihood-free inference for generating samples from Bayesian posteriors supported on low-dimensional manifolds.
Click here for more information
more about event
–
Location:
DERR 329; 329
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Anton Dochtermann
dochtermann@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Title: Helly type problems in group theory

ABSTRACT
Helly proved in 1913 that if one has (finitely many but) at least d+1 convex sets in d-dimensionalEuclidean space and knows that any d+1 of them have a common point, then all of them have acommon point. Also d+1 is minimal with this property. Thus the "Helly number of convex sets" ind-dimensional Euclidean space is d+1. This was one of the first results in the geometric transversaltheory subfield of discrete geometry (others being the theorems of Caratheodory and Radon), andthe study of Helly type problems in different settings is still a very active topic.
In this talk, which is based on joint work with Philip Hackney, we look at some Helly type problems inand around finite group theory. For example, we consider Helly numbers where "convex sets" isreplaced by "intersections of positive systems in a finite root system" and "intersections of Sylowp-subgroups in a finite group", etc. We know the (rather beautiful) precise answers in the formersetting, and have good upper bounds in the latter, although that work is still ongoing. Theseproblems showed up naturally while studying "higher Segal conditions" (in the sense of Dyckerhoffand Kapranov) for "partial groups" (in the sense of Chermak), and I plan to say a little bit about this connection. 
Click here for more information
more about event
– until Nov. 8
Location:
DERR 238; 238
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Illona Weber
ih10@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Math CATS is here to assist in almost all MATH courses for free!  If you're intimidated by the subject, come in and let's problem solve together.  Tutors are here to help reiterate, reinforce and help you relate to the content you heard in lecture. NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED! Click here for more information
more about event
– until Nov. 11
Location:
DERR 238; 238
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Illona Weber
ih10@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Math CATS is here to assist in almost all MATH courses for free!  If you're intimidated by the subject, come in and let's problem solve together.  Tutors are here to help reiterate, reinforce and help you relate to the content you heard in lecture. NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED! Click here for more information
more about event
–
Location:
HINE 201; 201
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Geonhee Cho
gunheecho@txstate.edu
Sungjoon Cho - Korea University
Towards Human-Centered Robotics: Connecting Robots to Humans and Humans to Robots
Abstract: Human-centered robotics seeks to create robots that bring meaningful value to people’s lives while making robotic capabilities easier for people to access and use. This talk explores two complementary directions: connecting robots to humans through natural, expressive, and engaging interaction, and connecting humans to robots through intuitive ways to guide, control, and adapt robot behavior. In the first direction, I will present research on expressive humanoid motion, persona-based interaction, and playful social robots, examining how robots can communicate with people and create meaningful social experiences. In the second, I will discuss motion generation, flexible teleoperation, and system integration as ways to lower the barriers to using robots and put their capabilities in people’s hands. Drawing on projects from our laboratory, I will show how these two directions inform one another, bringing human experience and practical usability into the design of robot intelligence and behavior.
– until Nov. 10
Location:
DERR 336; 336
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Cameron Farnsworth
clf129@txstate.edu
Campus Sponsor:
Department of Mathematics
Love a good problem?  Like to solve difficult puzzles?
Join professors, graduate students and undergraduates as we tackle problems presented from several mathematical journals.  An interest in higher level mathematics is all that is required to join our round table. Offer what you know, learn what you don't in a relaxed environment with some of our department's finest!