On the first weekend of October, the department hosted the Fall Eastern Sectional meeting of the American Mathematical Society. The meeting was attended by approximately 400 people, at the top end of the usual range for eastern sectional meetings. Over 250 of the attendees presented their research in 21 special sessions covering topics in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and statistics, and more than half of these special sessions were co-organized by members or former members of the Department. The plenary speakers were Melody Chan (Brown University) and Stephen Miller (Williams College). The department financed the registration of more than 30 of its graduate students to attend the conference.
Planning for the meeting began back in 2019, but most of the actual logistical organization took place in 2021-22 after it became clear that an in-person meeting would be possible. In fact, the UMass meeting was only the second in-person sectional meeting held by the AMS since the start of the COVID pandemic. The local organizing committee included faculty members Tom Braden, Panos Kevrekidis, Alejandro Morales, and Hongkun Zhang, and the meeting depended upon the invaluable help of department staff, including Carla Mokrzecki, Kaitlyn O’Konis, Ilona Trousdale, and Naitian Wang
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