SIAM Resources

“SIAM Activity Groups (SIAGs) provide a more focused forum for SIAM members interested in exploring one of the areas of applied mathematics, computational science, or applications.”

Discover More

“The mission of SIAM’s book program is to make relevant research results accessible to industry and science and to promote the interaction between mathematics and other disciplines such as engineering, science, and computing.”

Discover More

“Whether you are a student considering a career in mathematics, or an established mathematician, you will find the job-search and career information resources in this section invaluable.”

Discover More

“SIAM conferences focus on timely topics in applied and computational mathematics and applications and provide a place for members to exchange ideas and to expand their network of colleagues in both academia and industry.”

Discover More

“SIAM publishes 14 peer-reviewed research journals. . . . The full text of SIAM journals is now available electronically on a subscription basis.”

Discover More

“Search directory information for members of AMS, MAA, SIAM, AMATYC, AWM, & CMS/SMC.”

Discover More

“SIAM conducts an extensive prize program to recognize outstanding applied mathematicians and computational scientists.”

Discover More

“SIAM publishes selected proceedings from its yearly meetings and conferences.”

Discover More

“Students are the future of applied mathematics and computational science. SIAM welcomes students with opportunities to participate in SIAM, as well as online resources on education and careers.”

Discover More

General Resources

Giving a good presentation requires careful preparation. Here’s a quick, handy list of presentation tips:

  1. Have an outline of the talk on the title page or the first slide so the audience knows where you’re going.
  2. Have a short topic header at the top of each slide.
  3. Don’t use complete sentences on the slide.
  4. Don’t put too much on a slide.
  5. If you have animations, make sure the talk can proceed even if they don’t work.
  6. Make sure the font size is large enough to read. Make sure it has enough contrast to read it – light text on dark background or dark text on light background. Don’t use strange fonts.
  7. Use graphics and pictures in your slides.
  8. For a graph, have a title and labels for the axes with units.
  9. Don’t try to cover too much – a one term course cannot be covered in an hour.
  10. Don’t introduce too much jargon.
  11. Don’t do a long derivation.
  12. If you do a derivation or a proof, make sure you first write what you are trying to derive or prove. That way, when people get lost, they can look at the top of the board and see where they are trying to go to and where from.
  13. When you have an important equation, try to have a physical or conceptual explanation of it too.
  14. Don’t introduce too many new variables.
  15. Practice the talk by yourself and in front of others. Have them give you suggestions for improvement.
  16. During the presentation, look at the audience and make eye contact with a number of people.
  17. Speak loud enough for people to hear you.
  18. Avoid saying fluff words, such as “uh” and “basically.”
  19. If you stumble verbally, do not apologize but continue.
  20. Do not rush the presentation.
  21. Look at the computer screen or a print-out of your slides, not the screen behind you.
  22. Do not read your slides or have your presentation memorized word-for-word, but speak about your work from the bullets on the slide or from notes.
  23. Smile.
  24. Stop talking periodically and ask questions to make sure everyone is keeping up with you. In your practice, time the presentation to allow for a few minutes of questions at the end. At the last, ask the question “Are there any questions?”
  25. You should spend at least 75% of your time looking at your audience and at most 25% of your time looking at the blackboard. First-time speakers often spend 100% of their time looking at the blackboard
  26. Plan a closing line. Even if you give a great talk, ending it with “Um, I guess that’s all I’ve got” or “I think that’s the last slide” will do nothing for your cause. Say something like “That concludes my presentation–thank you for your attention” or “I’ll be happy to take questions now–thanks for coming ” or simply “Thank you.”

Sources

Latex is a typesetting language widely used in the sciences for writing articles, textbooks, and just about anything with equations in it.

Distributions

You’ll need an installed LaTeX distribution to typeset your work. Several popular distributions are:

If you’re using a Linux system (especially on campus), the odds are good that the software you need is already installed.

Tutorials

If you’re completely new to LaTeX, here are some good places to get started:

Finally, with Beamer, LaTeX can be used to make great presentations. A Beamer Quickstart shows how it’s done.

References

Here are some great places to look when you can’t quite figure out how to do what you need:

Useful Packages

Lastly, here are some LaTeX packages that can make your life easier:

amsmath
This package is the principal package in the AMS-LaTeX distribution. It adapts for use in LaTeX most of the mathematical features found in AMS-TeX; it is a near-indispensable adjunct to serious mathematical typesetting in LaTeX.
cancel
A package to draw diagonal lines (“cancelling” a term) and arrows with limits (cancelling a term “to a value”) through parts of maths formulas.
enumerate
The enumerate package adds an optional argument to the enumerate environment which determines the style in which the counter is printed.
fancyhdr
The package provides extensive facilities, both for constructing headers and footers, and for controlling their use (for example, at times when LaTeX would automatically change the heading style in use).
fullpage
This package sets all 4 margins to be either 1 inch or 1.5 cm, and specifies the page style.
mathtools
Mathtools provides many useful tools for mathematical typesetting.
pstricks
An extensive collection of PostScript macros that is compatible with most TeX macro formats, including Plain TeX, LaTeX, AMS-TeX, and AMS-LaTeX. Included are macros for colour, graphics, pie charts, rotation, trees and overlays.
setspace
Provides support for setting the spacing between lines in a document. Package options include singlespacing, onehalfspacing, and doublespacing.

CTAN is also a good place to look for specific functionality.

Here’s a collection of classic and not-so-classic references to help you look up an unfamiliar term, find an analytic solution, or refresh your memory on a trig identity

Everyone comes at programming from a different background. Hopefully one of these sites speaks to yours:

Texas Advanced Computing Center Training Classes

“TACC offers various training classes in high performance computing (HPC), scientific visualization (SciVis), distributed and grid computing (DGC), and computational cluster management. TACC training classes teach the programming principles and techniques in HPC and SciVis as well as how to use TACC’s high-end systems most effectively.”

Software Carpentry

“Many scientists and engineers spend much of their lives programming, but only a handful have ever been taught how to do this well. … This course is an intensive introduction to basic software development practices for scientists and engineers that can reduce the time they spend programming by 20-25%.”

Blaise Barney’s Introduction to Parallel Computing

“This tutorial covers the very basics of parallel computing, and is intended for someone who is just becoming acquainted with the subject. It begins with a brief overview, including concepts and terminology associated with parallel computing. The topics of parallel memory architectures and programming models are then explored. These topics are followed by a discussion on a number of issues related to designing parallel programs. The tutorial concludes with several examples of how to parallelize simple serial programs.”

Texas Advanced Computing Center Academic Courses

“TACC scientists are teaching … undergraduate and graduate level courses at The University of Texas at Austin, in the Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation. The courses are designed to enable students to apply scientific computing in research and development for both academic and industry careers.”