Date: 8/6/2026
The Freiwald Program has grown into a cornerstone of undergraduate research within the math department, promoting a rich culture of collaboration and mentorship that brings together students and faculty. The Office of Undergraduate Research and a generous alumni donation—established in honor of Emeritus Professor Ron Freiwald—support the scholars over two intensive summer months. During the summer of 2026, the group tackled a diverse array of exciting mathematical topics: Hamiltonian cycles on Cayley graphs (Sam); Riemann surfaces and Hurwitz theory (Andy); geometric scattering theory (Jodie); zero sets of linear recurrence sequences over general fields (Husain); non-commutative martingales on von Neumann algebras and quantum decoherence (Steven); coherent states, Berezin-Toeplitz quantization, and classical limits of the fuzzy sphere (Wenzhuo). Much of this work is still ongoing and will be presented at the upcoming WashU Fall Undergraduate Symposium.