WEST LONG BRANCH – Associate professor of mathematics, Susan H. Marshall, and associate professor of management and decision sciences, Donald R. Smith, were awarded a Carl B. Allendoerfer Award by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for their article, “Feedback, Control, and the Distribution of Prime Numbers.”
The award was presented last month at the MAA’s annual summer meeting in Portland, Ore. The award is given for articles of expository excellence published in Mathematics Magazine.
In the article, Marshall and Smith describe an unusual application of the feedback and control technique from mathematical modeling to a classical mystery of number theory, the distribution of prime numbers.
In addition, Marshall received a Halmos-Ford Award for her paper, co-authored with Alexander Perlis (LSU), “Heronian Tetrahedra Are Lattice Tetrahedra,” published in American Mathematical Monthly in February 2013. In the paper, Marshall and Perlis extend a result about Heronian triangles into three dimensions.
“Kudos to Dr. Marshall,” said Michael Palladino, dean of the School of Science. “She joins a select group of scholars who have won two major awards at MAA’s conference
“Their work is a terrific example of how two scholars from different disciplines – math and business – can collaborate and make a valued scholarly contribution recognized by others.”
Don Moliver, dean of the Leon Hess Business School, agreed.
“Dr. Marshall and Dr. Smith’s collaborative research is innovative. I am delighted they are being recognized for their outstanding scholarship,” Moliver said.
Established in 1976, the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award is named after a distinguished mathematician from the University of Washington and former president of the MAA.
Originally known as the Ford Award, the Paul R. Halmos-Lester R. Ford Award was established in 1964, and was named for distinguished mathematician Lester R. Ford. In 2012, the name was changed to honor the award support provided by the Halmost family and Paul R. Halmost, another distinguished mathematician and American Mathematical Monthly editor.
