Department welcomes new Ph.D.  students to the mathematical sciences graduate program.

Each year, the University of Delaware Department of Mathematical Sciences welcomes talented Ph.D. students with research interests encompassing computational mathematics, numerical analysis, probability, discrete mathematics and analysis:

• Eight new Ph.D. students for the 2026–2027 academic year.

• Nine new Ph.D. students for the 2025–2026 academic year, including four international students. 

We are proud to provide them with opportunities to explore their passions, and highlight their achievements.

Winter Research Symposium

The department’s annual Winter Research Symposium, organized by faculty members Ke Chen and Yvonne Ou, showcased graduate research on February 6, 2026. UD alumnus Shukai Du, now an assistant professor at Syracuse University, delivered the keynote address. He presented “element learning,” a machine-learning framework designed to accelerate finite element methods for solving partial differential equations.

Following poster presentations, doctoral candidates Emma Weber and Randon Weaver received Excellent Poster Awards. Each earned a travel allowance. The posters are now displayed in the lobby of Ewing Hall. 

Doctoral student John Byrne received the Wenbo Li Scholarship for Graduate Research for his paper, “A general theorem spectral extremal graph theory,” published in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.

Undergraduate Research Discovery Day

On February 12, the department hosted Undergraduate Research Discovery Day to highlight summer research opportunities for undergraduates. Organized by Philippe Guyenne, the event featured research across pure and applied mathematics—ranging from functional analysis and quantum information to numerical analysis and mathematical biology. The program showcased projects from Groups Exploring the Mathematical Sciences (GEMS) projects, which fosters collaborative research between graduate and undergraduate students.

Graduate Student Accomplishments

• George Baziotis and Dhawal Patil were selected as funded junior researchers at the Mittag-Leffler Institute’s spring 2026 program, Operator Algebras and Quantum Information. 

• Hamad El Kahza was named a Mark Kac Postdoctoral Fellow in Applied Mathematics at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

• John Byrne was appointed Stephen E. Warschawski Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego.

• George Baziotis secured a postdoctoral research position at Seoul National University.