Byungchul Cha Recognized at 2019 Honors Convocation
Cha, associate professor of mathematics, was awarded both the Donald B. Hoffman Research Fellowship and the Crossette Family Fellowship for International Research.By: Bill Keller Tuesday, May 7, 2019 03:05 PM
Associate Professor Cha (left) is congratulated by President John I. Williams Jr.Cha's research interests include number theory, specifically "Euler systems of Heegner points of elliptic curves and their applications in Shafarevich-Tate groups, as well as the distribution of zeros of various L-functions in a function fields setting" as well as prime numbers. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in South Korea and completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University.
The Donald B. Hoffman Research Fellowship is named in honor of Mr. Donald B. Hoffman, Class of 1932, and is given to encourage scholarship, research or creative activity which results in publication, performance or exhibition.
The Crossette Family Fellowship for International Research, established by the Crossette family to support faculty travel and study outside the United States. The aim is to expand the geographical boundaries of the College’s intellectual reach and increase opportunities for faculty to add to their expertise and scholarship.
Cha will use the Donald B. Hoffman Research Fellowship funds to study statistical aspects of ranks of elliptic curves in a function field setting. His goal is to obtain an unconditional proof of the Goldfeld Conjecture for average rank of elliptic curves in the function field setting. While the Goldfeld Conjecture has led to significant research on ranks of elliptic curves, the proposition has not been proved in a classical setting.
He will use the Crossette Fellowship to continue his collaborative work with a colleague in South Korea on “Intrinsic Diophantine Approximation on Circles.”
For more information on Muhlenberg's 2019 Honors Convocation, including a full list of award recipients, view our recent article.
