The Department of Mathematics is excited to introduce new leadership for our graduate program. Traditionally, the graduate program has only had one leadership position, the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS). As we continue to grow our department, this year we have implemented a new position, Director of Graduate Admissions (DGA) which will work closely with the DGS, overseeing the application process and new student outreach.

Jared Bronski is our new Director of Graduate Studies. Having received his PhD in applied and computational mathematics from Princeton University in 1994, Bronski has been teaching with the Department of Mathematics since 1998. This is his first time in a leadership position. He is excited to work with the new DGA to recruit next year’s cohort of graduate students and to create more opportunities for graduate students to interact with other students and faculty, something which he feels has been lacking since COVID and the Altgeld & Illini Hall project.

Richard B. Sowers is our new Director of Graduate Admissions. He has been with the department since 1996. His formal training was in probability and stochastic processes, and his interests have grown over the years to include a number of problems in applied and pure mathematics and the mathematics of data analysis. He is excited to take the helm and pioneer this new position. In his words, “Mathematics is the language of quantitative thinking.  Graduate studies in mathematics enables someone to think deeply about many problems in our increasingly quantitative world and gives someone tools to understand problems which don't yet exist.  The program at the University of Illinois builds on the world-renowned expertise of our faculty and the supportive culture of our graduate program.  We welcome a broad range of applicants to our program.  Today's graduate students will be the mathematicians of tomorrow.”