Ermelinda DeLaViña is an American mathematician specializing in

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

. She is a professor in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences Department of the

University of Houston–Downtown The University of Houston–Downtown (UHD) is a public university in Houston, Texas. It is part of the University of Houston System and has a campus that spans in Downtown Houston with a satellite location, UHD-Northwest in Harris County. Fou ...

, where she is also Associate Dean of the College of Science and Technology.

Education

DeLaViña grew up in a working-class family in Texas, with roots stretching back for five generations there. Her parents came from

Bishop, Texas Bishop is a city in Nueces County, Texas, Nueces County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,134 in the United States Census 2010, 2010 census, down from 3305 in United States Census 2000, 2000 census. History Bishop is a small town in so ...

, but raised her in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. Inspired by a 9th-grade algebra teacher, she aimed for a college education despite the discouragement of her school counselors. She started her undergraduate studies at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

, but dropped out after one term, and after working for two years began again at the

University of Texas–Pan American , mottoeng = Education, the Guardian of Society , established = , closed = , type = Public university , endowment = $65 million , president = Dr. Havidan Rodriguez ...

, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a minor in computer science in 1989, becoming the first in her family with a college degree. She returned to graduate school at the University of Houston and completed a Ph.D. in mathematics there in 1997. Her

doctoral supervisor A doctoral advisor (also dissertation director, dissertation advisor; or doctoral supervisor) is a member of a university faculty whose role is to guide graduate students who are candidates for a doctorate, helping them select coursework, as well ...

was

Siemion Fajtlowicz Siemion Fajtlowicz is a Polish-American mathematician, formerly a professor at the University of Houston. He is known for creating and developing the conjecture-making computer program Graffiti.. Fajtlowicz received his Ph.D. in 1967 or 1968 from ...

, with whom she worked on the

Graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

computer program for automatically formulating conjectures in graph theory.

Career

After completing her doctorate, DeLaViña became an assistant professor at the University of Houston–Downtown. She was promoted to full professor there in 2010, and became associate dean in 2012.

Contributions

One of DeLaViña's results in graph theory is related to an

inequality Inequality may refer to: Economics * Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups * ...

showing that every

undirected graph In discrete mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a graph is a structure amounting to a set of objects in which some pairs of the objects are in some sense "related". The objects correspond to mathematical abstractions called '' v ...

has an independent set that is at least as large as its

radius In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

; DeLaViña showed that the graphs with no larger independent set always contain a

Hamiltonian path In the mathematical field of graph theory, a Hamiltonian path (or traceable path) is a path in an undirected or directed graph that visits each vertex exactly once. A Hamiltonian cycle (or Hamiltonian circuit) is a cycle that visits each vertex ...

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delavina, Ermelinda Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Graph theorists University of Texas–Pan American alumni University of Houston alumni University of Houston–Downtown faculty 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women