Portland, ME — The University of Southern Maine (USM) welcomed mathematicians, educators, and students from across the Northeast to its Portland campus for the Spring 2025 Meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America (NES-MAA). The two-day event brought together a vibrant community for presentations, discussion, and shared discovery in mathematics and mathematics education.
This year’s conference featured 14 contributed talks, highlighting both faculty and student research. Among them:
- Confidence Intervals for the Lognormal Means from Left Censored Samples
- Building Inclusive and Belonging-Centered Classrooms through Faculty Learning Communities
- Desmos in Multivariable Calculus
- Addressing the Math Needs of Underprepared College Freshmen
- Evaluation of Linear Solvers on Next Generation Arithmetic
- The Discrete Euclidean Diagonal Analogue — a student presentation that was particularly well received for its creativity and rigor
Attendees also enjoyed a diverse slate of invited plenary talks, which covered emerging ideas across mathematical disciplines:
- ChatGPT: More Friend Than Foe? — examining the role of generative AI in mathematical thinking and teaching
- Can You Hear the Shape of a Polygonal Billiard Table? — exploring the intersection of geometry, dynamics, and spectral theory
- Handling Knottiness — a journey through mathematical topology and the art of understanding entanglement
- Statistical Modeling with Zero-Inflated Data — tackling challenges in modern statistical inference
Adding a recreational twist, the conference’s math activity featured Investigations Involving the Game of Set, encouraging attendees to engage with logic, combinatorics, and visual pattern recognition through this classic game-based puzzle.
Institutions represented at the conference included:
University of Hartford, Salem State, Babson College, Southern Connecticut State University, Central Connecticut State University, Keene State College, University of New Hampshire, Smith College, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, West Chester University, Bowdoin College, Colby College, and, of course, the University of Southern Maine.
“The sense of community and intellectual curiosity at this year’s meeting was exceptional,” said one organizer. “We were thrilled to host colleagues from across the region and to highlight student voices alongside seasoned researchers.”
The NES-MAA conference at USM underscored the power of mathematics to connect people across disciplines, institutions, and generations — and affirmed the region’s commitment to inclusive, collaborative academic inquiry.
See: https://www.northeastern.maa.org/spring2025