Mathematics M.S. and Ph.D.

Preparing Students for Academia and Industry

Mathematics both contributes to and gains inspiration from the practical problems solved throughout the disciplines at Stevens. Scientific and engineering problems have often inspired new developments in mathematics, and, conversely, mathematical results have frequently had an impact on business, engineering, the sciences, and technology. Stevens offers a program that prepares students equally for professional and academic careers through core instruction in fundamental mathematics and opportunities for applied research.

Research In Focus

Protecting Computer Networks and Information

Mathematics faculty operate on the cutting edge of theory to attack quandries in pure mathematics as well as real-world problems. As part of the Geometric Asymptotic Group Theory Conference, Dr. Robert Gilman discussed how using braids, or rather the geometric abstraction of braids, to protect data from hacking at quantum speeds. Quantum computing accounts for major technology hurdles in providing security, and research by Dr. Gilman is leading the way towards innovative solutions. Together with Dr. Alexei Miasnikov, below, Dr. Gilman is the recipient of a two-year National Security Agency research grant test a novel approach to the Andrews-Curtis conjecture, a famous unsolved problem from topology and combinatorial group theory.

Group Theory, Logic, and Complexity

Dr. Alexei Miasnikov's research includes combinatorial, geometric, algorithmic and asymptotic group theory; algorithmic and model theoretic algebra; mathematical logic and recursion theory; average and generic computational complexity; cryptography; and statistical methods in pure mathematics. He is a co-recipient of the Marsden Award, a fund that invests in investigator-initiated research aimed at generating new knowledge, on a project that aims to to investigate mathematical structures described by finite state machines such as automata. These structures include fragments of the arithmetic and state spaces of computer programs, the cornerstones of modern computing. Together with Dr. Gilman, above, and Alexander Ushakov, Dr. Miasnikov is the recipient of an NSF research and education grant to bring scholars from various branches of mathematics and computer science together to consider new approaches to open questions in the field of geometric, combinational and computational group theory.

Optimization under uncertainty and risk

Dr. Darinka Dentcheva's research includes mathematical models or risk, optimization theory, and methods of risk-averse optimization. This involves mathematical and statistical models of decision problems, and analytical and numerical tools for their solution. Dr. Dentcheva is a co-author of the popular recent book in that area: Lecture Notes on Stochastic Programming: Modeling and Theory, SIAM, 2009. She is a recipient of four NSF awards in the area of optimization of stochastic systems, and of several awards of German research foundations (DAAD and DFG). Dr. Dentcheva and Dr. Ruszczynski (Rutgers University) introduced optimization models with stochastic order constraints, which became a hot research topic in the last six years.