The UK Task Force on Research and Graduate Education's 1998 report to President Charles Wethington ranked UK's Mathematics Department as one of twenty "distinguished, nationally competitive programs" and identified as a target for further investment in UK's initiative to achieve top-twenty public research university status.

Our research faculty has achieved national and international recognition in both pure and applied mathematics. Two of our current faculty members have received the AMS Centennial Fellowship, a highly competitive award given each year to young mathematicians of exceptional accomplishment and promise. Faculty research areas range from such areas of pure mathematics as commutative algebra, generalized cohomology theories, potential theory, and harmonic analysis to applied areas such as inverse problems, combinatorial optimization, numerical linear algebra, ocean modelling, quantum-mechanical scattering theory, and continuum mechanics.

Our department offers bachelors', masters', and doctoral degrees. We have over 70 enrolled graduate students and have graduated 40 Ph. D.'s in the past five years--all of whom were able to find academic or industrial jobs on graduation.

Our faculty are involved in emerging distance learning technologies and innovative instructional methods such as the MathExcel program for Calculus, which has provided a model for new programs in Mathematics and other disciplines statewide.