Overview
Embracing the Mathematics Clinics at CGU and at the highly regarded undergraduate Claremont Colleges, the Claremont Mathematics Clinic has proven to be an effective “two-way street” between applied mathematicians at the colleges and scientists and mathematicians in industry or government laboratories in need of amplified mathematical experience.
In the hundreds of projects that have been completed by clinic teams since 1973, students and faculty have gained an opportunity to apply their mathematical skills to an impressive variety of real-world, current problems. Client scientists and engineers who propose projects benefit from useful, relevant solutions. Recent projects led to two patents and a computational model that outperforms the current industry standard.
Goals
- provide students with experience for a career in industry or government
- provide students with experience far beyond normal university training
- sustain a curriculum attuned to real-world applications foster an ongoing dialog between faculty and scientists, bring industrial trends to campus, and alert industry to new techniques developed in academia
- allow business and industry to draw upon the intellectual and physical resources of The Claremont Colleges
- develop specific projects to be addressed by joint teams of faculty members, students, and industry
Description
Clinic teams address problems of sufficient magnitude and complexity that their analysis, solution and exposition require substantial effort over the course of an academic year or full-time involvement over a summer. If problems require expertise from disciplines other than mathematics — such as engineering, physics or economics — advanced undergraduate or graduate students from these disciplines may join the clinic team. The CGU Mathematics Clinic works closely with its counterparts at the Claremont Colleges, with clinic teams often combining graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
The creative resources of the Mathematics Clinic often far exceed those normally available even to a fairly large organization.
The Claremont Colleges’ mathematics programs stress creative thinking. This means that students and faculty members are exceptionally well-equipped to address problems. Many faculty members have considerable background in industry.
The clinic includes specialists actively engaged in research in nearly all phases of applied mathematics, with established reputations in areas such as mathematical modeling of physical and economic systems; differential and integral equations; numerical analysis; Monte Carlo methods; operations research; scheduling; mathematical programming and optimization; probability theory; applied statistics; and computer science.
Recognizing the value of the Mathematics Clinic, the National Science Foundation has provided two major grants: one to develop the clinic, and the other to bring new mathematicians to Claremont. To date, 52 postdoctoral mathematicians have participated in and benefited from the clinic experience.
Students receive course credit for their work in the Mathematics Clinic.