Nov 01, 2006 - Claremont, Calif. -

Professor of Mathematics Francis Edward Su was named the James R.C. Leitzel Lecturer for 2006 by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).

For this honor, he gave the eighth annual James R.C. Leitzel Lecture at the MathFest, the national summer meetings of the MAA, held this year in Knoxville Tenn. August 10-12. The Leitzel Lecture provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of issues or innovations in mathematical sciences education at the undergraduate or graduate level. Su chose to speak about the process of doing research with undergraduates with his talk, "Teaching Research: Encouraging Discoveries."

This was the second plenary lecture Su was invited to give this year at a national meeting. The first was an MAA invited address at the Joint Winter Meetings in San Antonio, Texas, January 12-15, in which he spoke about research he did with Debbie Berg '06 and Andrew Niedermaier '04. The talk was entitled, "Preference Sets, Graphs, and Voting in Agreeable Societies."

The MAA previously recognized Su's work with the Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member (2004) and the Merten M. Hasse Prize for outstanding mathematical exposition (2001). In addition to his teaching and research activities, Su is the creator of the popular award-winning Math Fun Facts website.