Elizabeth Wilcox
Graduate StudentDepartment of Mathematical Sciences
Binghamton University
Binghamton, New York 13902
Email: wilcox@math.binghamton.edu
Office: LN 2408B
Fall 2009 Office Hours
Wednesday 11 - 12
By appointment when needed.
This is a picture of one of the marsh areas
in the Binghamton University Nature Preserve --
a great place to get a little outdoors while not
straying too far from the office.
Teaching
I am honored to have received a Dissertation Award from the department for this semester, and will not be teaching. I expect to teach Math 304: Linear Algebra this spring, although this may change as January approaches.
In the past at Binghamton University I have TAed for Math 330: Introduction to Higher Mathematics and taught Calculus I, Math 130: Math in Action, Math 147: Introduction to Statistics, Math 304: Linear Algebra, Math 314: Discrete Mathematics, and Math 330. At the University of Vermont, I have taught College Algebra (Math 9) and Introduction to Discrete Math (Math 17).
Research Interests
At present I am working towards a PhD with Dr. Benjamin Brewster, focusing on complete groups and group automorphisms. In particular, we’ve recently been studying wreath products and their automorphism groups. Some work on this topic is in the write-up stage and hopefully will be submitted for publication soon.
I earned an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Vermont, where Dr. Richard Foote was my advisor. My master’s thesis was an attempt to gain insight into M. Suzuki’s proof that no odd-order CA group is simple, an important step in Feit & Thompson’s theorem that all odd-order groups are solvable. Suzuki’s original proof involves character theory while our partial results used permutation group theory and some graph theory.
After graduation from Carleton College in 2002, I received a 2002-2003 National Cancer Research Award and had the privilege of working at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick in Frederick, Maryland. I worked in a biochemistry lab under Dr. Ernest Hamel, studying nucleotide interactions with microtubule proteins for insight into the structure of these proteins. I examined the activity levels of potential anti-cancer drugs and began to establish a mammalian (kangaroo rat) cell line stably transfected with green fluorescent protein labeled tubulin. It was an interesting time, which ultimately led me to realize that my interests are more mathematical than laboratory in nature.
Additional Interests
With a
committee of other graduate students, I organized the Fall
2008 Binghamton University
Graduate Conference in Algebra & Topology This conference is scheduled
to occur again, on November 14 and 15, 2009.
It’s definitely a good opportunity for graduate students to network and
discuss their work.
I've also had the pleasure of being Graduate Math Club (Galois Club) President for the past few years. Upcoming events are always announced on the department email list -- keep your eyes peeled for details!
Publication References
Wilcox, Elizabeth, Connor McGrath, Andrei V. Blokhin, Rick Gussio, and Ernest Hamel. “Evidence for a Distinct Ligand Binding Site on Tubulin Discovered Through Inhibition of GDP of Paclitaxel-Induced Tubulin Assembly in the Absence of Exogenous GTP.” Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 484 (2009): 55 - 62
Wilcox, Elizabeth. "New Approaches to Suzuki's CA-Group Theorem." Master's Thesis. University of Vermont, 2006.
De Martino, Gabriella, Giuseppe La Regina, Antonio Coluccia, Michael C. Edler, Maria Chiara Barbera, Andrea Brancale, Elizabeth Wilcox, Ernest Hamel, Marino Artico, and Romano Silvestri. “Arylthioindoles, Potent Inhibitors of Tubulin Polymerization.” Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2004): 6120-6123.
Wilcox, Elizabeth, Andrei Blockhov, Debbie J. Lee, Ernest Hamel. “An apparent absolute requirement for GTP in paclitaxel-driven tubulin assembly.” Proceedings of the American Association of Cancer Research, 2003.
Professional Materials
Personal Links
The Outdoor Forum New York State Featured Hikes
New York State Hiking Trail Finder – Some of the links are dead ends, but some of them can lead to very nice websites with good information about hiking trails.
Updated September 24, 2009.