Amber Lynn Puha is an American mathematician and educator at

California State University San Marcos California State University San Marcos (CSUSM or Cal State San Marcos) is a public university in San Marcos, California. It was founded in 1989 as the 21st campus in the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. CSUSM offers 43 bachel ...

. Her research concerns probability theory and stochastic processes.

Early life and education

She earned a B.A. in mathematics at

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

(UCSD) in 1993 and a Ph.D. in mathematics at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA) under the supervision of

Thomas M. Liggett Thomas Milton Liggett (March 29, 1944 – May 12, 2020) was a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked in probability theory, specializing in interacting particle systems. Early life Thomas Milton Liggett was born o ...

in 1998.

Career

She joined

(CSUSM) in 1999. She was appointed an associate professor in 2005 and a full professor in 2010. She has been the chair of the Department of Mathematics at CSUSM since 2021. Her research has been focused on the modeling and analysis of stochastic networks. Jointly with H. Christian Gromoll and

Ruth J. Williams Ruth Jeannette Williams is an Australian-born American mathematician at the University of California, San Diego where she holds the Charles Lee Powell Chair as a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics. Her research concerns probability theory and ...

, she developed fluid (law of large numbers) and diffusion (central limit theorem) approximations for processor sharing queues with renewal arrivals and iid service requirements. By removing the Poisson arrival and the exponential service assumptions in previous literatures, this work advanced the state of art of applied probability and has board applications, "from many-server parallel queues that model call centers to bandwidth sharing communications networks that model the Internet."

Professional services

From 2009 to 2011, she served as an associate director at the

Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) is an American mathematics institute funded by the National Science Foundation. The initial funding for the institute was approved in May 1999 and it was inaugurated in August, 2000. IPAM i ...

, a federally funded mathematics research institute on the UCLA campus. From 2013 to 2015, she served a three-year elected term on the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Council, the main governing body of the society. From 2016 to 2019, she served on the

INFORMS The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger of ...

Applied Probability Society Prize Committee. From 2017 to 2020, she served on the Committee On Travel Awards of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics. Since 2013, she has been the coordinator of The Southern California Probability Symposium, an annual gathering of probabilists supported by

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, UCSB,

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

, and

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. Since 2019, she has been an associate editor of ''

Mathematics of Operations Research ''Mathematics of Operations Research'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal established in February 1976. It focuses on areas of mathematics relevant to the field of operations research such as continuous optimization, discrete optimiz ...

'' in the area of stochastic models. From 2013-2015, Puha served as a Council Member at Large for the American Mathematical Society. Since 2016, she has been a life member at American Mathematical Society.

Other services

In addition to her academic work, she served as the faculty advisor for the CSUSM Surf Team, which competes in the

National Scholastic Surfing Association The National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) is a surfing association in the United States. It is a member organization of Surfing America, the National Governing Body of Surfing in the United States. Founded in 1978 by Tom Gibbons, John Rothr ...

(NSSA). She led the team to its first and second National Championship in 2009 and 2019, respectively. She won the NSSA Coach of the Year award in 2019.

Awards

Applied Probability Society Best Publication Award (2007), jointly with H. Christian Gromoll and

* Greater San Diego Area Mathematics Council Outstanding Post Secondary Mathematics Teacher (2009) * CSUSM Presidents Outstanding Faculty Award for Scholarship and Creative Activity (2015/2016) * National Scholastic Surfing Association Coach of the Year (2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puha, Amber California State University San Marcos faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, San Diego alumni 21st-century American mathematicians