Indiana Section of the Mathematical Association of America
Distinguished Service Award

Citation to

John Lorch

The Indiana Section Distinguished Service Award was initiated in 1993 to honor a member of the Section by acknowledging his or her extraordinary contributions to the Section and outstanding efforts consistent with the stated purposes of the Mathematical Association of America and the Section, namely, assisting in promoting the interests of, and improving education in, the mathematical sciences in America, especially at the collegiate level.

This year’s nominee has been in active in serving the Section in official capacities, improving undergraduate mathematics within the community, and introducing undergraduates to new mathematics and involving them in their discovery.  Today we are honored to present this award to John Lorch of Ball State University. 

John Lorch received his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in 1995.   His wide variety of mathematical interests includes Lie groups and their representations, Latin squares and Sudoku, and probabilistic number theory.  Along with several articles published in Mathematics Magazine and The American Mathematics Monthly, He has also involved undergraduate majors in his research, coauthoring the paper “Modular Magic Sudoku” with Ellen Weld in Involve in 2012. John also coauthored the MAA textbook Mathematics for Secondary School Teachers, published 2011.

John has contributed his services to the Indiana Section in a variety of ways since 2000.  He worked with Project NeXT-IN in 2000 and Project NeXT in 2006.  He was the newsletter editor for the Indiana Section for two years (2002-2004) before serving a year as Vice Chair (2004-2005) and then Chair (2005-2006).  Most recently, from 2008-2010 he served on the Distinguished Service Award Committee.  In addition, he and his wife Crystal also led a student workshop on the “Mathematics of Sudoku” at the Spring 2010 Section meeting.   At the national level, John co-organized the MathFest 2010 session “The History of Mathematics and its Uses in the Classroom,” and is currently serving on the MAA Editorial Board for Textbooks.

Congratulations to John Lorch, the recipient of the 2013 Indiana MAA Section Distinguished Service Award.

Mel Royer, Section Chair, 
Indiana Section of the MAA