As officially recorded by the University of Memphis,

The family of Ralph Faudree has established an award for PhD students in mathematics.

Acknowledged internationally as an outstanding mathematician, Dr. Faudree's interest in
and promotion of higher education helped to guide the University of Memphis toward
increased standards for academic excellence.

Ralph was the first in his family to graduate from college and the first to earn a doctoral
degree. Life as a professor of mathematics enabled him to travel the world, meet and work
with great mathematicians, and nurture upcoming students at all levels. Teaching and
reasearch brought him enormous joy, and both were central to what made his many
years of service at the U of M so rewarding.

This award was established to encourage others in pursuit of similar goals.

Accordingly, the Department of Mathematical Sciences has established the Dr. Ralph Faudree Award, to be given annually to up to two PhD students in Mathematics who have demonstrated excellent progress toward achieving the doctoral degree. It consists of a monetary award of $300 and a certificate of recognition. Eligibility requirements include having passed the Qualifying PhD Exam and a commendable teaching record. Each year, nominees will be invited to give a presentation of their research during Mathematics Research Day. The final decision is made by a jury of department-appointed faculty members.

Congratulations to Ali Dogan, recipient of the inaugural
Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Ali has been an excellent calculus
instructor, as well as assisting in the Math Learning Center.
Mr. Dogan gave a presentation from graph theory, On the Edge Spectrum of Saturation Number for Paths and Stars.

Congratulations to Kamil Popielarz, recipient of the inaugural Dr. Ralph Faudree Award. Kamil has been a stalwart in the Math Learning Center, helping our undergraduates get through their courses. Mr. Popielarz gave a presentation investigating the question, How many triangles can a graph have?

Other nominees for the Ralph Faudree Award in Mathematics included Richard Snyder and those listed below, along with their research topics presented on Mathematics Research Day, April 30, 2015.

• Quantitative Uniform Approximation by Generalized Discrete Singular Operators by Merve Kester
• Stability Analysis of Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) Control by Yury Sokolov
  
• Intuitionistic Models of Intuitionist Logic by David Lewis
• On a Problem of Littlewood and Extremely Sparse Partition-Regular Patterns by Julian Sahasrabudhe

Congratulations again to Ali Dogan, recipient of the 2015 Department of Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award. For the past few years, Ali has been a core member of our calculus teaching faculty. He has not only handled the instruction duties for the sections he has been assigned, but has also assisted students from all sections of calculus, helping them with their homework in the Math Learning Center. Mr. Dogan has also been of great help in preparing reports for external review, creating common final exam questions to use in assessing how well our students have mastered the material.

We would also like to acknowledge the other nominees for this year's Outstanding Graduate Assistant Teaching Award: Kusi-Appiah Akwasi, Merve Kester, Richard Johnson, and Stephen Smith.

• Jacob Maynard

• Jacob Walpole
• Victoria Sawyer