Graduate Student Earns Teaching Award

24 January 2001 -- Linda Smolka, a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics, has received a Graduate Assistant Award for Outstanding Teaching, an award sponsored jointly by the Graduate School and the Vice President and Dean for Undergraduate Education.

Her award, which includes a monetary prize, continues a recent tradition of recognition for outstanding teaching by graduate assistants in the Department of Mathematics. Since 1996, five graduate assistants in the department have been presented with the award. During her tenure at Penn State, Smolka has taught a variety of mathematics courses, and says she attempts to emphasize the connections, power, and usefulness of mathematics.

"There is a lot of overlap with mathematics to other fields, and learning the subject becomes more interesting when you start to make connections," Smolka said. "Whenever possible, we use examples of where the concepts we cover are used in other fields, such as engineering. It's important that students make those connections and especially rewarding when they begin to use them on a daily basis."

In addition to teaching, Smolka conducts research in the William G. Pritchard Fluid Mechanics Laboratory regarding the "pinch-off process" of drops of fluid. Specifically, when a drop of fluid forms, a filament develops connecting the drop to its source--such as when water drips from a faucet. She studies the impact of fluid properties, among them elasticity and viscosity, on the actions and development of the filament. Applications for such research include ink-jet printing and the manufacture of products such as fiber-optic cable, Kevlar, and Lycra.

She earned her master's degree in mathematics from Penn State in 1997 and her bachelor's in civil engineering from Princeton University in 1989.