Overview | School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences

Solving today's problems

With grants from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, National Security Agency and more, our mathematics and statistical sciences faculty are leading game-changing research projects. Graduate and undergraduate students have the opportunity to be a part of this exciting work.

Conducting research allows you to deepen your understanding of theoretical mathematics, to explore the ways in which we apply mathematics to engineering and other sciences, to test your theories on math education, to see how statistics intersects with various fields, and more. Research opportunities abound in all four of our major focus areas.

Header image courtesy of authors Hans D. Mittelmann and Andrew J. Bordner from their paper, A New Formulation of Protein Evolutionary Models that Account for Structural Constraints, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Applied Mathematics

Applied mathematics encompasses mathematical modeling and the development of computational tools often motivated by some area of application in the natural or social sciences or engineering. Our vibrant group in Applied Mathematics has strong interdisciplinary connections with the schools of engineering and life sciences as well as institutes such as the Bio Design Institute, the Mayo Clinic, the Global Institute of Sustainability, and the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative. The applied math faculty is well funded through grants from NSF, NIH, defense agencies and others.

Computational Mathematics

Mathematical Biology

Nonlinear Dynamical Systems

Theoretical Mathematics

Theoretical mathematics is the study of abstract mathematical structures which form the basic framework for the rest of the mathematical sciences. In large part, theoretical mathematics is inspired by intellectual curiosity. Theoretical mathematics provides the tools for scientific discoveries in the future, often in unexpected ways.

Discrete Mathematics

Andrzej Czygrinow | Susanna Fishel | Zilin Jiang | Hal Kierstead

Analysis

Geometry and Topology

Matthias Kawski | Brett Kotschwar | Julien Paupert

Number Theory

Nancy Childress | Florian Sprung

Mathematics Education

Mathematics Education is the study of how people learn and teach mathematics meaningfully. One of its major goals is to develop theories of learning and teaching that will be foundational for strategies and curricular materials that improve the conceptual learning and use of mathematics. The math-ed group at ASU is particularly interested in mathematics learning and pedagogy at the high-school and early college levels and on the learning process in traditional, flipped class models and online settings. Content areas include precalculus, calculus, and the transition to advanced theoretical courses.

Mathematics Education

Statistics

Statistics is the science of collecting data, summarizing data, making sense of data, and drawing inferences from data. With research and decisions increasingly being data-driven, basic knowledge of statistical concepts and methods is becoming more important. Our faculty members apply statistics to research in a range of fields, including functional MRI, behavioral science, epidemiology, biology, medical imaging and network theory. Statisticians are often part of larger interdisciplinary research teams because, typically, they do not have ownership of data and collaborate with researchers who do. That, in part, makes being a statistician so much fun; as already noted by John W. Tukey, statisticians “get to play in everyone's backyard.”

Statistics

Featured Research

Sharon Crook studies the mechanisms and algorithms underlying neural computation. Using mathematical models, analysis and computer simulations, she and her research team examine the dynamics of neurons and networks of neurons. In particular, their focus is on understanding the ability that neurons have to change at a cellular or network level due to trauma, rehabilitation, learning, development, or aging.

The aim of Nicolas Lanchier's research is to understand the role of space in biological and social communities through the mathematical analysis of stochastic processes known as interacting particle systems. Popular examples of such models are the contact process and the voter model. These processes are ideally suited to investigate the consequences of the inclusion of space in the form of local interactions.

Ming-Hung (Jason) Kao’s research will not only contribute to statistical research, but also be of practical importance. The results will help researchers to conduct well-designed neuroimaging experiments to collect high-quality data for making precise statistical inference. This will further lead to a better understanding of the brain and some brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.

Research News

Mathematicians solve long-standing geometry problem on equiangular lines
February 21, 2022

For more than 50 years, mathematicians have been pondering a problem in discrete geometry concerning equiangular lines — how many such lines can exist simultaneously in a given dimension? Zilin Jiang and a team of researchers at MIT recently solved this long-standing problem.

ASU-led study finds use of respirator masks could have prevented spread of COVID-19
September 17, 2021

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health agencies recommend wearing masks to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, but does the kind of mask — cloth, surgical or respirator — make a difference?

ASU receives 16 NSF CAREER awards
June 28, 2021

Researchers at Arizona State University have earned 16 National Science Foundation early faculty career awards, dating back to late 2020.