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Department of Mathematics
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Summer Research Program

The Department of Mathematics and the College of Arts and Sciences sponsor a four week paid summer research internship for Winthrop mathematics students. Participants in the Research Experience in Mathematics (REM) are exposed to the research process, and design and conduct their own original research projects.

Past research themes included Cryptography(2010) and Phylogeny(2011).  In 2012 the REM will focus on mathematical modeling of cancer growth using developmental control networks.  Instead of searching for methods to fight cancer in individual cells, this network model supposes that cancer develops as results of faulty interactions among network of cells.  During the summer of 2012, our interdisciplinary teams will be working on mathematical models of these control networks in an attempt to better understand the implications of this new view of cancer.

Support Needed:
The REM program relies entirely on donor support to provide stipends for participants. Please consider making a gift to help provide support for undergraduate research at Winthrop.

REM participants receive: student and board

  • Five weeks of faculty mentorship;
  • A modest research stipend;
  • On campus housing;
  • Research focused excursions;
  • An opportunity to present work at an end-of-program reception.

For many students the end-of-program reception is the first of many positive outcomes resulting from their effort and exploration.

2010 and 2011 Participant Accomplishments:  

  • Michael Capps was selected as a McNair Scholar and won a national award for his outstanding research.
  • Matt Neal published “A History of Elliptic Curves and their Applications” in The MathMate, the official online journal of the South Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
  • Heather Martin and Rachel Webster presented their work at the South Carolina Teachers of Mathematics Annual Conference and will be submitting their article “Examining the Mathematical Sub-Symbolic Register using Cryptology” for publication. 
  • Michael Capps and Kirsten Stalling received the Patterson Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Research at the Southeastern Section meeting of the Mathematical Association of America for their artistic representations of cryptography.  A sample of their work is available on YouTube.
  • Ryan Nikin-Beers and Marvin Jones work on visual cryptography has been published on the Mathematica Demonstrations website.
  • Marvin Jones was accepted and enrolled at Wake Forest University for graduate school to pursue further study in mathematics.
  • Ryan Nikin-Beers was selected to participate in an NSF-funded REU at Rutgers University.
  • Matt Neal and Andrew Niswander presented an analysis of neighbor-joining and balanced minimum evolution algorithms of phylogenetic reconstruction at a mathematical biology conference at UNC-Greensboro.
  • Danielle Couture and Jessica Turek’s work on invariant based quartet puzzling inspired faculty work leading to a new method of phylogenetic reconstruction.