MathFest adds to the collegiate experience

by Sheldon Bloom

Troy’s mathematics department held its 16th annual “MathFest” last weekend. 

At the conference, undergraduate students from Troy and neighboring universities were invited to demonstrate their research. The conference featured a guest speaker and a calculus competition.

“The goal is just to give undergraduate students the opportunity to experience what a real math conference is like,” said Dr. Ken Roblee, division chair for the Department of Mathematics. “They get to meet their math peers from around the state as well as neighboring states, and we have graduate school representatives from area graduate schools.

“It gives students who’ve done a project with a professor the ability to present the work in the form of a poster or an actual talk.”

Students in attendance were invited to listen to an in-depth talk on mathematics by Dr. Audi Byrne from the University of South Alabama. 

“We try to bring in a regionally or nationally known speaker for the conference,” Roblee said. “We try to make it so that it’s not overly technical. 

“We try to select a person that has a lot of experience working with students on projects because they know what might interest students.”

The conference also featured the annual calculus competition, which  gives students a fun way to test their skills against each other.

The calculus competition was a written test. Each year, the test is made by a different faculty member, and prizes are awarded for the top five scorers. 

 “I was really glad I was able to present,” said Megean Chaudron, a junior psychology major from Flomaton, Alabama. “Presenting in any conference is great experience because I plan to be a researcher in the future, and I was even able to meet recruiters for other grad schools and learn about their programs.”