VT Association for Women in Mathematics Celebrates 50 Years!

Dr. Lauren M. Childs is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and the Cliff and Agnes Lilly Faculty Fellow in the College of Science. Dr. Childs' research focuses on developing and analyzing mathematical and computational models for a better understanding of the pathogenesis and spread of tropical infectious diseases, such as malaria and dengue. Her research emphasizes the interactions within a host organism, such as between an invading pathogen and the immune response.

Dr.  Julianne Chung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and part of the Computational Modeling and Data Analytics Program at Virginia Tech. Prior to joining Virginia Tech in 2013, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington and an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Computer Science Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her PhD in 2009 in the Department of Math and Computer Science at Emory University. She was a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow from 2004-2009 and received the DOE Frederick Howes Scholar in Computational Science Award in 2010. In 2017, she was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER grant for her work on integrated methods for large-scale inversion.

Dr. Rachel Arnold is a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Virginia Tech. She is a triple Hokie, having earned her BS, MS, and PhD from Virginia Tech--all in mathematics. She conducts research in mathematics education, developing psychological models to understand how students learn mathematics. She uses the results of her research to develop instructional tools for an improved learning experience in VT's 3000-level mathematics courses. Dr. Arnold also designs and leads the professional development program for VT's mathematics graduate students teachers and is an active member in the MAA College Mathematics Instructor Development Source (CoMInDS) community. Lastly, Rachel Arnold is a consultiing mathematician for Digiital Bazaar, Inc., a blockchain technology company heavily involved in the design of standards-track technologies at the World Wide Web Consortiium (W3C). She is the co-author of an asynchronous consensus algorithm, and she provides proofs and design recommendations for mathematical protcols and algorithms developed by Digital Bazaar.

 Gretchen L. Matthews is a Professor of Mathematics at Virginia Tech and Director of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Southwest Virginia. She is affiliated faculty with Virginia Tech's Hume Center for Natioinal Security & Technology and Computational Modeling & Data Analytics program. Her research is in appliied algebra, with a focus on coding theory and cryptography and applicatioins in data storage, protection and privacy. She is an AWM Fellow, in recognition of her efforts to broaden participation in mathematics. She earned a BS from Oklahoma State University and a PhD from Louisiana State University, both in Mathematics. She spent time as a postdoc at University of Tennessee and on the faculty at Clemson University before joining Virginia Tech.