Thank you for your interest in our department and in the University of Oklahoma. We hope that you enjoy your visit!
The Department of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma (OU) has a long and rich academic tradition dating back to the awarding of our first Masters degree in 1927 and our first doctorate in 1947. We offer a wide range of options leading to the Master of Arts, Master of Science, and Ph.D. degrees.
Elm Avenue in the Fall
If you pursue a graduate degree in Mathematics at OU, you will join a community consisting of 34 faculty members, around 70 graduate students, 7 staff members, 9 lecturers, and 8 post-doctoral associates and visitors. You will be part of a team that is responsible for the instruction of 10,000-12,000 OU undergraduate students annually. Our internationally renowned faculty maintain a vibrant and collegial research atmosphere, and also serve as sources of inspiration, as mentors and advisors. Our strong sense of community is enhanced by the fact that faculty, post-doctoral and student offices, common room, research library, and instructional classrooms are all housed in the same building.
You will experience a strong seminar culture. Our Department hosts many seminar series, including six that are run entirely by graduate students. This lively research environment is further enhanced by a generous endowment set up by J. Clarence Karcher, which allows the department to bring many prominent visiting mathematicians to OU.
Student Topology Seminar
You will become a member of a diverse student community. Our current graduate students have come to Oklahoma from all over the US, and from China, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, India, Iraq, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Nepal, Palestine and Turkey. Over 43 percent of our graduate students are women.
You will receive practical training as you earn your advanced degree. The majority of our graduate students are supported by graduate teaching assistantships, departmental scholarships, and graduate fellowships. The Department keeps up to date on sources of travel funds, and on possible sources of University awards and scholarships for graduate students. Mathematics graduate students have an excellent record of winning scholarships and awards from the University.
You will receive guidance and mentoring from senior students in the Mathematics Graduate Students Association, MGSA. MGSA officers continually work to further the interests of mathematics graduate students, through fundraising for student awards, the discussion of quality of life issues, the election of OU GSS representatives, and the election of a represetative on the Mathematics Department Graduate Committee. They also maintain a student seminar archive and provide an ever-increasing series of resources for mathematics graduate students on the MGSA web page. The MGSA also coordinates social activities among graduate and undergraduate students. Here you can see MGSA members contemplating solid geometry and plane geometry, and engaged in collaborative problem solving.
You will be able to select from a broad range of options in pure and applied mathematics and in research in undergraduate mathematics education for your graduate degree:
- Algebra and Number Theory. Algebraic Geometry, Algebraic Groups, Combinatorics, Modular Forms, Representation Theory (real, p-adic, Lie, automorphic).
- Analysis. Global Analysis, Harmonic Analysis, Integrable Systems, PDEs, Signal Processing, Spectral Theory, Wavelets and Frames.
- Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics. Control Theory, Dynamical Systems, Modeling.
- Geometry. Convexity, Harmonic Maps, Riemannian Geometry, Group Actions and Non-negative Curvature.
- RUME. Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, Diversity and Equity, International Comparative Education.
- Topology. Algebraic and Geometric Topology, Dimension Theory, Geometric Group Theory, Hyperbolic Geometry, Low Dimensional Topology, Teichmuller Theory.
You get to live in Norman, Oklahoma, a student-friendly, family-friendly and very affordable community. Find out why CNNMoney.com named Norman the 6th Best Place to live in the US in 2008. Norman is just a short (30 minute) commute to downtown Oklahoma City and to Will Rogers airport.
If you wish to learn more about our graduate programs, you may visit our graduate page, the MGSA page, browse our Graduate Handbook, or send your questions to us.
To learn more about the University of Oklahoma, please see president David Boren's welcome message. You may also wish to explore the OU campus, check out the University overview and facts page, or take a tour of the University museums and collections. We are particularly proud of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and the History of Science Collection which houses one of Galileo's first editions, containing his own handwritten corrections and marginal notes.
