You are here: American University College of Arts & Sciences Mathematics & Statistics

Department of Math & Statistics

Offering graduate and undergraduate programs in Biostatistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Computational Science, and Statistics.

Incoming Students

Incoming students planning to enroll in MATH 221 (Calculus I) will need to take the Mathematics Placement Exam (or supported alternatives) — and may wish to join the Not Math Club, Girls Who Code, and the AU-ASA club.

Tutoring

For mathematics help at the undergraduate level, visit the Tutoring Center.

Statistical Consulting Center 

For graduate, undergraduate, and faculty statistics help, visit the Statistical Consulting Center.

Student Research

See more about our summer program and more Student Research.

News

Youngster's brain is more powerful than a calculator.

On Campus ·

Making Mathematics Magic

Read More

Bulletins

Philip Eigen and Fiona Fawcett at Lockheed Martin competition

Congratulations to junior Philip Eigen (Math/Data Science) and sophomore Fiona Fawcett (Data Science/Finance) for representing AU in the 2024 Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Case Competition. 

Our MS program in Data Science ranks #27 in the nation in Fortune Magazine for 2024 and #22 in TechGuide, which ranks the Online Data Science MS #11.

Swimmer Mimi Watts, CAS/BS ’24, shattered a 24-year-old pool record in the 100-meter freestyle in a meet with Catholic University, with a time of 51.56. The Eagles dominated the day, winning 20 of 24 events, and Watts was named Gregorio’s Trattoria Student-Athlete of the Week.

Dhanush KikkisettiCongratulations to MS Data Science student Dhanush Kikkisetti who has received a travel award to attend and present at the Michael Woodroofe memorial conference in Ann Arbor, MI, from Sept 29-30, 2023. Dhanush is presenting a poster on his work on "Monitoring coded language emergence and use on extremist social media platforms."

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics hosted an international conference 15-17, 2023. The XIV-th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control featured statistical process control and monitoring, sampling inspection plans, measuring uncertainty, design of experiments, data warehousing, data mining, and explorative data analysis.

Professor Julia Chifman received a 3-year grant from the National Science Foundation. Julia’s research projectAdvancing Inference of Phylogenetic Trees and Networks Under Multispecies Coalescent with Hybridization and Gene Flow” is funded for 3 years, through September 2026.

Professor Stephen Casey published a book, the edited volume “Sampling, Approximation, and Signal Analysis Harmonic Analysis in the Spirit of J. Rowland Higgins”, in the Applied and Numerical Harmonic Analysis series of Springer-Birkhauser.

Recent MS Data Science grad Aarushi Sahejpal was featured in American MagazineAudacious Changemaker: Data (S)mart.

We congratulate the the 2023 Math & Stats Student Award winners: Ama AppauCollin CoilLaura Claire HeinlyJohnson OdejideJosephus Nyumalin, and Thomas Schupp.

Two MS Data Science students, Chaytanya Kumar (President/Founder of AU's American Statistical Association student club, ASA) and Dhanush Kikkisetti (ASA member), were awarded AU funding to cover a significant portion of attending the annual Symposium on Data Science and Statistics (SDSS) in St. Louis, Missouri in May. SDSS provides a unique platform for data scientists, computer scientists, and statisticians to confer and exchange ideas, while faculty and industry professionals network and share insights. Chaytanya and Dhanush encourage all STEM students to seek out conferences like this to attend and gain valuable experiences and insights into the current state of their respective fields.

Professor Michael Robinson received a 3-year $284,000 research grant from the Office of Naval Research for the project "Topological Acoustical Feature Extraction and Exploitation (TAFEE)." He also received a $110,598 grant from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the project, “Modeling and Analytic Capabilities for KBase”

Professor Mary Gray and her late husband, Alfred, were honored by the Association for Women in Mathematics with a named award, the Mary and Alfie Gray Award for Social Justice.

Professor John Nolan has been accepted into the Fulbright Specialist Program for a tenure of four years.

Tate Altman won the Graduate Physical Sciences Workshop Award at the Mathias Student Research Conference.

Data science grad students Haiman Wong, Elizabeth Marge, Jingyi Xu and Doudou Shi, working with faculty Richard Ressler and Maria Barouti, are featured in Can Data Literacy Be Fun? The Census Bureau Is Building an App for That.

  • The department extends heartfelt congratulations to Shalini Ramachandra, Jana Cohen, Amanda Muniz, Mingfan Meng for being awarded the 2021 Frank Cox Jones Scholarship for Women in Mathematics and Lydia Rees for being awarded the 2021 Hanna Miriam Sandler and Bella Sandler Scholarship.
  • Jana Cohen was awarded $4,500, comprised of $2,500 from the NASA District of Columbia Space Grant Consortium (DCSGC) and $2,000 from the CAS Mathias Research Fellowship and other AU sources. 
  • Dr. James Dickens was featured in a Stats + Stories podcast on Data Science in the Classroom
  • A U-statistic approach to population genetics: Dr. David Gerard was awarded a grant in the amount of $188,694.00 from the National Science Foundation.
  • AU Alum Misrak Gezmu, PhD, is a biostatistician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She earned her PhD in statistics from American University in 1996. She taught at Norfolk State University before starting at NIH. Dr. Gezmu was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in May 2022.

  • How statistics can aid in the fight against misinformation: Dr. Zois Boukouvalas and Dr. Nathalie Japkowicz were featured in a story for a new site on Medium about cybersecurity.
  • Stephen Casey was awarded a three-year grant for $228,269 from
    the Air Force Office of Scientific Research: Novel techniques for signal analysis and processing, 2020-2023; his book Sampling: Theory and Applications  was recently published; and he won the Distinguished Alumni in the Sciences from Drew University.
  • Monica Jackson received a $29,824 grant from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for “The Summer Program In Research And Learning SPIRAL at American University” April 2021
  • Michael Robinson received a $20,500 grant from Battelle Memorial Institute and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for his project “HyperThesis DARPA Modeling Adversarial Activity (MAA)” April 2021
  • Zois Boukouvalas was granted $160,000 from Energetics Technology Center, with prime funding from the Office of Naval Research, for his project called "Human Assisted Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing Approaches for Energetics." January 2021
  • Zois Boukouvalas was granted $200,000 from Energetics Technology Center, with prime funding from the Office of Naval Research, for his project titled "Data-Driven Multi-model Fusion for the Analysis of Energetic Material Systems." December 2020