The Trevor Evans Award, established by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), is presented annually to an author or authors of an exceptional mathematics article that is accessible to undergraduates and published during the preceding year in “Math Horizons.” “Math Horizons” is the undergraduate magazine of the MAA, publishing high-quality articles that are geared towards undergraduates. It is a vibrant and accessible forum for practitioners, students, educators, and enthusiasts of mathematics, dedicated to exploring the folklore, characters, and current happenings in mathematical culture.

Award Citation from the MAA: This article explains an interesting result about the intersection of convex sets in a way that is accessible to a broad audience while still remaining rigorous in its treatment of the material. The authors’ choice to motivate the question using approval voting draws the reader into the material in an engaging way.  The proof of Helly’s Theorem in two dimensions is very well presented and clear, with just a small case left to give the reader something to do on their own. Overall, the article leads the reader through the exploration of an intriguing mathematical result in an accessible way with nice illustrations and plenty of suggestions for the reader to learn more.

The article explores the mathematics of the game Lights Out. Classically, Lights Out is an electronic handheld game featuring a 5 by 5 grid of light-up buttons. The game begins with a mix of lights turned on and off, and the goal is to turn them all off. Pressing a button changes its state and the state of its four adjacent cardinal neighbors. In the article, Arangala, Bailey and Mazur analyze a variation of game in which the right side of the board connects to the left and the lights to have multiple levels of brightness instead of just on and off. They develop a connection to the well-known mathematical sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, that allows them to determine when it is possible to use a simple strategy to turn off lights.

The College Mathematics Journal is an international, peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality exposition on mathematical topics related to the undergraduate curriculum. It features articles that explore new or innovative perspectives on both new and existing mathematics, most of which are accessible to upper-level undergraduates. The journal is a publication of the Mathematical Association of America.

In the article, Mazur and Taylor ask students in calculus 1 to reflect on what engaged learning means to them in hopes of determining if students equate engaged learning with active learning. They found that their students’ perceptions of engaged learning varied greatly, and many students did not see active learning as engaging.

Kristen Mazur is an assistant professor of mathematics and statistics. Laura Taylor is an associate professor of statistics. PRIMUS is a leading journal for exchanging ideas about teaching collegiate mathematics.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Kristen Mazur recently gave a mathematics colloquium talk at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.

Her talk titled “An Overview of the Mathematics of Approval Voting” detailed recent mathematics research in approval voting. In approval voting instead of choosing just one candidate, individuals may vote for all candidates that they deem acceptable.

Mathematics research in approval voting focuses on understanding the maximum number of voters that agree on a single candidate and on finding the smallest set of candidates such that all voters approve of at least one candidate in the set.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Kristen Mazur has published a peer-reviewed article entitled “Even Poincaré Made Mistakes: Tales of Success Through Failure” in the publication Math Horizons.

In the article, Mazur discusses three stories from the history of mathematics in which famous mathematicians and scientists failed, yet their failure led to mathematical growth.

Math Horizons is an official publication of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). It is the undergraduate magazine of the MAA and as such its target audience is undergraduate students who are enthusiastic about mathematics and have some mathematical training. Math Horizons is published four times per year, and all MAA members have free access to it.

Mazur, Kristen. (2020). Even Poincaré Made Mistakes: Tales of Success Through Failure. Math Horizons. 27(3): 6-9.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Kristen Mazur recently gave a mathematics colloquium talk at High Point University.

Her talk titled “Four Stories of Successful Failure in Mathematics” highlights stories from the history of mathematics in which failure led to new mathematical ideas.

The conference was held at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, on March 8 and 9, 2019. Around 350 undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty from five states attended the conference. Mazur’s lecture was part of her responsibilities as the 2018-19 Section Lecturer for the MAA Southeastern Section. The nominating committee of the Southeastern Section of the MAA selects one mathematics faculty member from the section as the Section Lecturer. Mazur is the first ������Ƶ faculty member to hold this position.

The Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America advances the mathematical sciences in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee by considering mathematical professionals at all levels in the design of its program and activities, with a special emphasis on the collegiate level. One of the primary activities of the section is its annual Section Meeting. The meeting includes presentations on both mathematics research and the scholarship of teaching and learning undergraduate mathematics, professional development opportunities for junior faculty and activities for undergraduate students.

The nominating committee of the section selects one mathematics faculty member from the Southeastern Section of the MAA for this one-year position. Mazur is the first ������Ƶ faculty member to hold the position.

Duties as section lecturer primarily include giving a plenary lecture at the Spring 2019 MAA Southeastern Section Meeting. This meeting will take place March 7-9, 2019, at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. The section lecturer will also serve as an executive officer for the MAA-SE Section during the 2018-19 academic year.

The Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America advances the mathematical sciences in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee by considering mathematical professionals at all levels in the design of its program and activities, with a special emphasis on the collegiate level. One of the primary activities of the section is its annual Section Meeting. The meeting includes presentations on both mathematics research and the scholarship of teaching and learning undergraduate mathematics, professional development opportunities for junior faculty, and activities for undergraduate students.

In this article, Mazur and her coauthors applied original mathematics to develop lower bounds on the number of voters that agree in scenarios in which voters simultaneously apply approval voting to multiple platforms.

The American Mathematical Monthly is the premier journal of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). All MAA members have free access to this journal, and as such it is one of the most widely read mathematics journals. The goal of the journal is to inform, stimulate, challenge and entertain a broad mathematical audience with varying interests and abilities. Moreover, articles in The Monthly are meant to be more than just archived. They are meant to be read, enjoyed, and discussed.

Kristen Mazur, Mutiara Sondjaja, Matthew Wright & Carolyn Yarnall (2017) Approval Voting in Product Societies, The American Mathematical Monthly, 125:1, 29-43, DOI: