Liz Stanhope Awarded American Mathematical Society Grant

Liz Stanhope, Professor of Mathematics and Department Chair, received an American Mathematical Society-Simons Research Enhancement Grant for Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) Faculty. The $9,000 three-year AMS-Simons award is designed to support research and raise the visibility of mathematicians at institutions with no doctoral program.

Funds will support Dr. Stanhope’s project titled “Hearing Isolated Singularities In 4-Dimensional Riemannian Orbifolds.” Dr. Stanhope studies the question, “Can you year the shape of a drum?” That is, from the list of resonance frequencies of an object can you determine the shape of the object? The tools of the subfield of mathematics called differential geometry allows them to study drums whose shape might be full of holes or bend into the fourth dimension. Dr. Stanhope seeks to show that if a four-dimensional shape has isolated points about which the shape bends dramatically, those points can be detected from the shape’s list of resonance frequencies. Formally, they will use heat invariants to study the spectral properties of four-dimensional Riemannian orbifolds for the Laplace-Beltrami operator and the Hodge-Laplace operator. This project builds upon their previously published work studying the spectral geometry of Riemannian orbifolds. Dr. Stanhope acknowledges the support of the Banff International Research Station and the Women in Geometry Workshop series in building the collaborative network that led to this new project. The grant funds will allow Dr. Stanhope to travel to meet in-person with their collaborators during the course of the three years, including during their sabbatical.

Dr. Stanhope has a demonstrated commitment to undergraduate research and mentorship. They have co-authored with six undergraduate students on two previous papers. They have a manuscript in progress with four recent CAS grads. The new project supported by this grant will include a current CAS student.