Owen Byer

Owen joined the Eastern Mennonite faculty in 1999 after teaching at Northwestern College (Iowa) for three years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with secondary certification at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Delaware in Newark. His primary mathematical interests are combinatorics and extremal graph theory, although he has recently begun coauthoring a geometry textbook. His hobbies include basketball, bridge, the Cleveland Indians & Cavaliers, and the Miami Dolphins. Owen and his wife Barbara married in January 1990, with son Cameron born in 1998 and daughter Lily in 2001. The family attends Weavers Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va.

• B.A. in Mathematics, with secondary education certification, from Messiah College, 1989.
• M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Delaware, 1996. Thesis: Several Results on Extremal (v,e)-graphs.

• Exploring Loci in Geometry, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Conference of the ACMS (2007), pp 114-140. (joint with Deirdre L. Smeltzer)
• Edge bounds in nonhamiltonian k-connected graphs, Discrete Mathematics 307 (2007), pp.1572-1579. (joint with Deirdre L. Smeltzer)
• Mathematics Competency, a booklet to be used in the Math Competency course at EMU, May 2007. (joint with Deirdre L. Smeltzer)
• Observations on the Indeterminacy of the Sample Correlation Coefficient, College Mathematics Journal, Volume 33 (September 2002), pp. 320-322.
• Mental Arithmetic, Finding Squares, Mathematics Teacher, Volume 6 (September 2002), page 406.
• Maximum Number of 3-paths in a Graph, ARS Combinatoria, Volume 61 (2001), pp. 73-79.
• Two Path Extremal Graphs and an Application to a Ramsey-type Problem, Discrete Mathematics, Volume 196 (1999), pp. 51-64.
• Some New Bounds on the Maximum Number of Vertex Colorings of a (v,e)-Graph, Journal of Graph Theory, Volume 28 (1998), pp. 115-128.
• Maximum Number of 4-cliques in a 4-partite Graph, Bulletin of ICA, Volume 21 (1997), pp. 27-32.

• Presentation at MAA-AMS join national meeting, Exploring Loci in Geometry, San Diego, CA, January 6, 2008. (joint with Deirdre L. Smeltzer)
• Presentation at ACMS biannual meeting, Exploring Loci in Geometry, Messiah College, June 1, 2007. (joint with Deirdre L. Smeltzer)

• AP Calculus reader (7th year), Louisville, KY, June 2007.
• Reviewer for Mathematical Reviews.
• Volunteer coach for fifth grade Math Olympiads team at Mountain View Elementary School.
• Director of Harrisonburg Duplicate Bridge Club
• Treasurer, Weavers Mennonite Church.

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• Mathematical Association of America
• Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences

• ACMS biannual meeting, Messiah College, May 30, 2007 – June 1, 2007.
• MAA sectional meeting, Eastern Mennonite University and James Madison University, April 4-5, 2008.
• MAA-AMS joint national meetings, San Diego California, January 5-8, 2008.

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• President of EMU Faculty Senate
• Undergraduate representative to President’s Cabinet
• Senate representative on EMU Strategic Planning Committee
• Member of Committee on Teacher Education