Math Department Summer 2010 RSCA

During the summer of 2010, Dr. Kathy Tomlinson of the Mathematics Department reports that her student Mame Fatou Thiam (Mathematics Major) participated in the SUMSRI-Summer Undergraduate Mathematics Research Institute at Miami University in Ohio. With four other students in the program she investigated fairness of judging in subjective competitions such as figure skating or scholarship awards. The team used Monte Carlo simulations with beta-binomial distributions to find two patterns depending on whether the panel of judges is somewhat homogeneous or somewhat heterogeneous. Mame Fatou is a McNair Scholar and was able to do this research primarily because of her participation in and preparation from the McNair Program. Kathy Tomlinson was her McNair Faculty Mentor.