Dr. Jay J. Zimmerman
Professor
Department of Mathematics

I received my Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. My dissertation on Automorphism Groups of Groups was done under the direction of Dr. Derek Robinson. I have been on the faculty of Michigan State University and The University of Alabama before coming to the Department of Mathematics at Towson University in the Fall of 1989.

 

I am married with two sons, Kevin and Colin, and a daughter, Holly. My current hobbies are swimming, biking, and hiking. I visited Antarctica in January of 2005. Click here for a short description, linked to some pictures.

 

My main research interests are in Group Theory, Combinatorial Group Theory and Groups acting on Riemann Surfaces. Click here for my Publication List and here for my Curriculum Vitae. I have also done a lot of service and administrative work, for a summary click here Summary of Service Work. A few recent papers on Group Theory and on Groups acting on Riemann surfaces may be found here: Minimal Extension Covers, Subdirect Products of M* groups, The Symmetric Genus of p-Groups, The Symmetric Genus of Large Odd Order Groups and The Strong Symmetric Genus Spectrum of Abelian Groups. I am also interested in the art that can come out of the action of a finite group on a compact orientable surface. I have published many papers in the Proceedings of the Bridges conferences on this topic. In the 2006 Proceedings of the Bridges Conference in London, England (page 131) and I give some pictures of finite groups acting on compact surfaces of genus 2 or 3. The paper is titled Portraits of Groups. A subsequent paper appeared in the 2007 Proceedings of the Bridges Conference in San Sebastian, Spain (page 109) and describes how to draw finite groups with orientation reversing elements acting on compact surfaces. The paper is titled Portraits of Groups II, Orientation Reversing Actions. A PowerPoint presentation of this paper is also available, click on PowerPoint . The PowerPoint version of a talk that was presented to the Towson faculty October 12, 2007 is available on Portraits2007. Another paper appeared in the 2009 Proceedings of the Bridges Conference in Banff, Alberta, Canada (page 259) and constructs a model of a group of order 32 on a compact surface of genus 5. The paper is titled A Group Portrait on a Surface of Genus Five . I presented a paper in the 2011 Proceedings of the Bridges Conference in Coimbra, Portugal. This paper constructs a model of a quadrilateral group of order 16 on a compact surface of genus 3. The paper is titled A Portrait of a Quadrilateral Group . A PowerPoint presentation of this paper is also available, click on Quadrilateral Group PowerPoint. I presented a paper titled Portraits of Groups on Bordered Surfaces at the Bridges Conference in Jyvaskyla, Finland in 2016. A PowerPoint presentation of this paper is also available, click on Bordered Surface PowerPoint . On October 12, 2017, I gave a talk at Morgan State University on some newer results on the genus spectrum of groups. On January 10, 2018, I will give a talk at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego on the genus spectrum of groups. On June 1, 2019, I will give a talk at the Zassenhaus Conference in Binghamton, New York on The genus spectrum of certain classes of groups. On June 1, 2024, I will give a survey talk at a retirement conference for one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Dennis Schneider

 

 


Fall 2021 Courses:


MATH 267.002 Introduction to Abstract Mathematics


MATH 369.001 Introduction to Abstract Algebra


 

This home page was last edited on August 19, 2021.