KERA: Travis Nolan attends Southern Methodist University and ranked 5th in the world last year after taking gold in the IOIO, the International Origami Internet Olympiad. He’s a 20-year-old paleontology student who’s been into dinosaurs since the time he could talk. Travis Nolan, SMU paleontology student, likes to hang in the basement of Southern Methodist […]
WFAA: Math for Unbiased Maps created 1.5 million random redistricting maps and none were as biased as the one lawmakers approved Researchers at Southern Methodist University say new congressional maps passed by Texas lawmakers are significantly biased and engineered to create a Republican advantage. Andrea Barreiro is an associate professor of mathematics at SMU and part of […]
SMU News: Eight SMU students have accepted Fulbright and Boren awards for international study, research and teaching in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Five will be headed across the world as Fulbright finalists to conduct research and teach abroad for the 2022-2023 academic year, while three will travel as Boren fellows […]
Dallas Morning News: In the basement of SMU’s Heroy Science Hall, Travis Nolan cups an origami reptile in the palm of his hand. Technically, it’s not a dinosaur, though it looks like one. Nolan says the reptile, called a dimetrodon, walked the earth before dinosaurs even existed. The dimetrodon he’s holding has a small beige […]
Dedman College News: The SMU Department of Mathematics launched an NSF funded Research Training Group program (SMU-RTG) in 2019 which aims to nurture research interaction between faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students. The program has grown significantly over the years and currently supports eleven graduate and postdoctoral fellows. Here are some SMU-RTG fellow summer […]
Dallas Morning News: A group of SMU mathematicians and one philosopher are using math to measure how biased voting district maps are in Texas. The group, called Math for Unbiased Maps in Texas, uses software that generates millions of maps to compare with proposed district maps, creating an opportunity for greater accountability in redistricting. Every […]
Tom’s Dispatch Bill deBuys, is a former William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies fellow, an environmentalist, conservationist, and writer. For People, Land, and the Forest Service BY WILLIAM DEBUYS Firefighters don’t normally allude to early English epics, but in a briefing on the massive Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico, a top field […]
WFAA To build a successful career in paleontology, you need a passion for fossils, geology and physiology. And, if you’re SMU student Travis Nolan, you bring the secret weapon of origami to the table, too. “Being surrounded by bones and fossils and natural history is always just kind of fun for me,” the SMU junior […]
After English department faculty member Jonathan Malesic received more than 1,000 responses to his essay, “My College Students Are Not OK,” the New York Times published a follow-up essay with his response to some of the questions he received. “Don’t lose hope,” he urged a college student. “We’re going to need to all the brainpower […]
A new dinosaur species identified by paleontologist Tony Fiorillo and SMU Ph.D. graduate Yoshitsugu Kobayashi was covered by the Mirror, Earth.com and LiveScience.