UMass Boston

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• Mathematics BA
• Mathematics BS
• Mathematics Minor

Actuarial Science

The Department of Mathematics offers an introductory curriculum in Actuarial Science, approved at the UCAP-IP level by the Society of Actuaries. The curriculum consists of the following courses:

• Math 309, Financial Mathematics (prepares students for Exam FM).
• Math 345, Probability and Statistics (prepares students for Exam P).
• Math 448 and its graduate version Math 648, Computational Statistics (VEE in Mathematical Statistics).

These courses are open to qualified students from all majors and programs, and also to qualified non-degree students; please click the links above for information on pre-requisite courses. Students currently majoring in Mathematics who wish to study Actuarial Science may do so from within their current program; all of the courses listed above may be counted towards the upper-level elective requirement in any concentration.

For additional information, please email ActuarialScience@umb.edu.

UMass Boston opened its doors in September 1965 to about 1,200 students at its Park Square campus in downtown Boston. The University was driven by a mission to expand access to higher education for students in the Greater Boston area. At the time, the Division of Mathematics, headed by inaugural Chair Taffee T. Tanimoto, offered just eight courses. The founding faculty members of the Division of Mathematics, in addition to Tanimoto, were Alfonso G. Azpeitia, Carl Cohen, Richard Greechie, Yungyung Kuo, Judith Lee, John Miller, Lynn Nadeau, and Richard Turyn.¹

By the next academic year, the Division of Mathematics had expanded its ranks to twelve faculty members and its offerings to include differential equations and linear algebra. Within five years of UMass Boston opening its doors, the Mathematics faculty was offering nearly thirty courses, including several that still exist today. Among the Charter Class of UMass Boston are the following faculty and staff members who served the Department in the late 1960s: Patricia Ahlin, Kathleen Akins, Iacopo Barsotti, Deanne Dickinson, Earnest Dubois, Charles Freifeld, Colin Godfrey, Marie Lynch Herman, Norman Herzberg, Mary Hogan, Herbert Kamowitz, Joan Lukas, John Lukas, Juan Carlos Merlo, Some Mukherjee, Stephen Parrott, Lazaro Recht, Joseph Russell, Geza Schay, Vera Widder, and Dennis Wortman.¹

On June 12, 1969, UMass Boston held its first commencement. Among more than 500 graduates were the following recipients of departmental distinction in mathematics: Steven L. Botman, Alton J. Brann, May U. Chin, Domenico Joseph Magnarelli, Robert George Simontacchi, and Frank H. Wians. Chancellor Broderick, who presided over the ceremony at the War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Boston (now the site of the Hynes Convention Center), praised the faculty and graduates in attendance, remarking on how they had worked to create "a public universitythat sets as its goal the excellence of our excellent neighbors and that has already moved toward the goal." ^2,3

Of these graduates, Brann was notable for his generous contributions to the University as an alumnus. After going on to become a highly successful corporate CEO, leading Litton Industries and later Western Atlas, Brann played an active role in the UMass Boston First Campaign, which by the late 1990s had raised an estimated $28 million for the University (valued at more than $50 million today). Brann also personally donated $750,000, which along with matching contributions resulted in a gift of $1.5 million that established the Alton J. Brann Endowed Distinguished Professorship of Science and Mathematics. This was in addition to a gift of $75,000 that helped develop the Alton J. Brann Endowed Scholarship.⁴ The inaugural holder of the Brann Endowed Distinguished Professorship was Roderick "Rick" Jensen, and as of 2013, that position is held by Dr. Jill Macoska.⁵

Frank Wians, another one of the original graduates, pursued a career in academia following his graduation from UMass Boston. He was highlighted in an alumni update from the UMass Boston Bulletin in 1974, noting not only his service in the United States Air Force but his pursuit of a second bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona in Tuscon followed by a master's degree at the University of Vermont.⁶ He went on to become a Professor of Pathology and has published around 150 papers that have been cited over 6,500 times.⁷. Wians was honored in 2011 with the American Society of Clinical Pathology's ASCP Member Lifetime Achievement Award "for his commitment to the laboratory medicine profession."⁸

Sources:

1. "University of Massachusetts Boston 35th Anniversary Celebration: An Evening to Honor the Founding Faculty and Staff and the Charter Class of 1969," Joseph P. Healey Library Digital Collections, https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/collection/p15774coll22/id/61/, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, pp. 14-19
2. Healey Library, https://www.instagram.com/p/DKPduuxPju8/, retrieved 27 March 2026 
3. "Commencement Talk, Chancerllor Frances L. Broderick, 1969 June 12" Joseph P. Healey Library Digitial Collections, https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/collection/p15774coll22/id/52/, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 3.
4. University of Massachusetts Boston, "University Reporter - Vol. 03, No. 07 - March 1999" (1999). 1996-2009, University Reporter. 82. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/university_reporter/82, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 9.
5. University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees, "Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, Wednesday, February 16, 2005" (2005), https://www.umassp.edu/sites/default/files/board-meetings/2005/Board-Minutes-02-16-05.pdf, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 6. 
6. University of Massachusetts Boston, "Bulletin - Vol. 09, No. 02 - September 10, 1974" (1974). 1971-1977, UMass Boston Bulletin. 169. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/umb_bulletin/169, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 3.
7. "Frank Wians | research profile." Research Gate. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Wians, retrieved 27 March 2026. 
8. Frank H. Wians, Jr., PhD, MT(ASCP), Editor, 2004 – 2012, Laboratory Medicine, Volume 51, Issue 4, July 2020, Page 336, https://doi.org/10.1093/labmed/lmaa036, retrieved 27 March 2026.

In 1976, College I and College II were combined to form the College of Arts and Sciences, and the separate Mathematics Departments were reunited under Taffee Tanimoto, who served as Chair for just two more years before his long and storied tenure as the inaugural Department Chair came to an end.¹ Professor Tanimoto's time as Chair spanned an estimated 4 Chancellors and 6 Provosts. He continued to serve the Department until the early 1990s, and enjoyed a brief retirement before passing away in 1998. An undergraduate award was established in his honor and is now awarded each year by both the Mathematics Department and the Computer Science Department. Additionally, the Mathematics Department named its tutoring center, the Taffee Tanimoto Mathematics Resource Center, in Professor Tanimoto's honor.

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Department pursued a major expansion and by 1984, became the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.² Under founding Chair Colin Godfrey, who served until the late 1980s, the Department grew to offer nearly 40 undergraduate and graduate-level computer science courses within the next ten years.³ Additionally, throughout the 1980s, several courses still offered today were either created or revised, including: MATH 125 (Introductory Statistics), MATH 129 (Managerial Precalculus), MATH 130 (Precalculus), MATH 134 (Managerial Calculus), and MATH 345 (Probability and Statistics). During the 1990s, Complex Analysis appeared as MATH 358 for the first time, though it had been offered in some form since the 1960s, and MATH 115 (College Algebra) first appeared. Finally, with the turn of the century came the creation of MATH 114QR (Quantitative Reasoning), cementing the Department's role as central to the success of UMass Boston's undergraduate students.⁴

By 2001, having continued to grow its enrollment, offerings, and faculty, the Department voted to split into the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Computer Science.⁵ Both departments continued to share an office space until the demolition of the Science Building in the late 2010s. The founding Chair of the Department of Computer Science was Peter Fejer, who served from 2001 to 2019. There have been three subsequent Chairs: Marc Pomplun (2019 - 2025), Xiaohui Liang (2025), and Nurit Haspel (2025 - Present).

In Fall 2023, the College of Arts and Sciences was separated into the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Mathematics, with Donna Kuizenga as the founding Dean of CLA and Kenneth P. Sebens as the founding Dean of CSM.^6,7

Sources:

1. Courtesy of the University Archives and Special Collections Department, Joseph P. Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston: College of Liberal Arts, Dean’s Office records, retrieved 27 March 2026, https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/api/collection/p15774coll8/id/344/download, View File, p. 1 (see: Historical Note).
2. University of Massachusetts Boston. University of Massachusetts Boston Schedule of Courses, Fall 1984. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/universityofmass00univ_86/page/16/, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 16.
3. University of Massachusetts Boston. University of Massachusetts Boston Undergraduate Catalog, 1994-1996. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/universityofmass00univ_22, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 159-166.
4. University of Massachusetts Boston, "University Reporter - Vol. 04, No. 07 - March 2000" (2000). 1996-2009, University Reporter. 96. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/university_reporter/96, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 3. 
5. University of Massachusetts Boston. University of Massachusetts Boston Undergraduate Programs Catalog and Application, 2001-2002. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/universityofmass00univ_26, retrieved 27 March 2026, View File, p. 113.
6. University of Massachusetts Boston, “University Reporter - Vol. 08, No. 03 - November 2003” (2003). 1996-2009, University Reporter.https://scholarworks.umb.edu/university_reporter/132.
7. University of Massachusetts Boston. Community mourns loss of Professors Kuizenga and Broderick. UMass Boston Alumni, https://www.alumni.umb.edu/s/1355/22/interior.aspx?sid=1355&gid=3&pgid=252&cid=9381&ecid=9381&crid=0, retrieved March 27, 2026.

Since the College of Science and Mathematics was founded in Fall 2003, the Mathematics Department has continued to play an important role as a central service department at UMass Boston. Chairs Michael Greeley, Dennis Wortman, and Eric Grinberg led the Department throughout most of the 2000s and 2010s, with Greeley and William Hagar (Biology) helping to bridge the gap between the first permanent Dean of CSM (Kenneth Sebens) and the second (Andrew Grosovsky).

Throughout this time, the Department has continued to innovate and expand its course offerings, including MATH 242* (Multivariable and Vector Calculus), MATH 291 (Mathematical Software), MATH 280 (Introduction to Proofs), MATH 320L** (Discrete Structures), MATH 390 (Problem Solving Seminar), MATH 426 (Numerical Linear Algebra), MATH 440*** (Topology), MATH 447 (Probability Models), MATH 448 (Computational Statistics), and MATH 455 (Statistical Machine Learning).

Toward the end of the 2010s and in the early 2020s, the Department embarked on a new, concentration-driven model for the mathematics major programs, with each student who declared in Fall 2020 or later asked to choose between Applied and Pure Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Mathematics for Teaching. Along with a central set of core requirements, each concentration has specialized courses that hone students' mathematical knowledge and prepare them to successfully use their mathematics degree after graduation. You can find out more about our programs by visiting our Tutoring & Advising page.

Notes:

* - MATH 242 provides additional content beyond that which is covered in MATH 240, a course that had been offered for several years.

** MATH 320L was crosslisted between the Mathematics Department and Computer Science Departments for several years beginning in the late 2000s, and as of Spring 2021 is offered by the Mathematics Department as MATH 265 (while Computer Science offers a similar course called CS 220).

*** Topology had already been offered for several decades, since around Fall 1969, but it was not until the early 2010s that it was offered under the current course number MATH 440.