Dr. Stephanie Vance

Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Office:	Porter Hall Room 253
Office hours:	Monday 3:30-4:30, Tuesday 9-10am & 12-1pm, Wednesday 11-12 & 3:30-4:30, Thursday 9-10am, and by appointment
E-mail:	slvance 'at' adams.edu
Phone:	(719) 587-7474
Address:	Dept. of Chemistry, Computer Science, and Mathematics Adams State College 208 Edgemont Boulevard Alamosa, CO 81102

RESEARCH

My research interests are in combinatorics, discrete geometry, and algebraic coding theory. Currently I am working on lower bounds for the sphere packing density in high dimensions divisible by 4 and with an ASC undergraduate mathematics major I am investigating kissing configurations constructed from binary and ternary error-correcting codes. Click HERE for the slides of my most recent talk, Packing spheres efficiently and learning how to kiss in each dimension, which I gave on March 25, 2010 as part of the ongoing Adams State College lunchtime talk series.

I received my Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Washington and my thesis research, advised by Henry Cohn, was on lattices in Euclidean space with interesting algebraic structures and the sphere packing problem.

TEACHING

Fall 2010 Courses:

• Math 120: Calculus I
• Math 140: Geometry using Technology
• Math 279: The Art of Problem Solving
• Math 323: Algebraic Structures II

Summer 2010 Courses:

• Roller Coaster Physics and Science in the Real World (i.e., the 2010 Porter Scholar trip)
• Math 499: Combinatorics (independent study & research project in combinatorics)

Previous courses taught at Adams State College:

• Math 106: College Algebra (fall 2009 & spring 2010)
• Math 120: Calculus I (spring 2010)
• Math 322: Algebraic Structures (spring 2010)
• Math 321: Linear Algebra (fall 2009)
• Math 340: Probability and Statistics (fall 2009)

Recent and upcoming activities

• August 2010
  • I will be attending Project NExT courses and MathFest 2010 in Pittsburgh, PA.

• May 2010
  • Co-instructor with Dr. Marty Jones for Porter Scholar Trip: Roller coaster physics and science in the real world.

• March 2010
  • Gave ASC lunchtime talk titled, Packing spheres efficiently and learning how to kiss in each dimension.
  • Pied in the face at the ACME club's "Pi your professor" event!
  • Judge for the 61st annual Regional San Luis Valley Science Fair.

• January 2010
  • Attended the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics with four ASC undergraduate mathematics majors.
  • Attended the MAA/AMS Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco, CO.

• November 2009
  • Gave research talk at Western State College titled, The sphere packing and kissing number problems.

• October 2009
  • Gave presentation with ACME club members on mathematical card tricks and the perks of majoring in mathematics at ASC High School Science and Math Night.

Fun (and very useful) links

• SAGE Free open source Mathematics software
• When will I use Math?, learn about many great careers available to math majors.
• A Catalogue of Lattices, a lattice database maintained by Gabriele Nebe and Neil Sloane.
• Figure This!, fun and challenging mathematics problems for middle school students.
• Roller Coaster Physics Simulation