I'm happy to say that I successfully defended my master's thesis "A C++ Class Supporting Adjoint State Methods" on 11/30/07. This research lays the computational foundation for my doctoral research, which will examine the effect of adaptive adjoint-state methods' effect on the convergence of optimization algorithms.
Seeking to unite the graduate students studying mathematics (may it be pure, applied, or statistics), some colleagues and I have decided to form the GMACS Student Association. This club was approved by the GSA council on 11/27/2007. GMACS activities will begin the spring semester of 2008.