Welcome to my homepage!
Selma Yildirim
Associate Instructional Professor
5734 S University Ave
The University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60637
Email: selma@uchicago.edu
Teaching
Teaching in Spring 2025:
MATH 132 - Elem Functions and Calculus II
Past Quarters:
I taught courses in-person, remotely, and hybrid or blended synchronous teaching format. In what follows, if teaching modality in not given, that means the format was in-person.MATH 105 - Fundamental Mathematics (Autumn 2024)
MATH 131 - Elem Functions and Calculus I (Winter 2025)
MATH 152 - Calculus II (Autumn 2021)(Blended Synchronous Teaching-Most students attended in person, remote students enrolled in the class and students staying at home joined classes on Zoom)
MATH 153 - Calculus III (Winter 2022)(Hybrid or Blended Synchronous Teaching-Most students attended in person, students staying at home joined classes on Zoom)
MATH 183 - Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences I (Autumn 2022, Winter 2024)
MATH 184 - Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences II (Spring 2022*, Spring 2024)
(*Even though I occasionally brought my laptop to the classroom in my courses in Spring 2022, I have decided not to list these as Blended Synchronous Teaching.)MATH 185 - Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences III (Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Autumn 2023)
MATH 195 - Mathematical Methods for Social Sciences (Autumn 2018, Winter 2019, Spring 2019, Autumn 2019, Spring 2020(Remote),Autumn 2020(Remote))
MATH 196 - Linear Algebra (Winter 2019, Winter 2020)
MATH 201 - Mathematical Methods for Physical Sciences II (Autumn 2020(Remote), Winter 2021(Remote), Spring 2021(Remote), Spring 2022)
MATH 211 - Basic Numerical Analysis (Autumn 2023)
Extra Credit Python Tutorials -- Introduction of Python coding in Mathematics courses
As part of an extra credit project, I prepared these tutorials for my students enrolled in Math 195 (Math Methods for Social Sciences)0 and Math 196 (Linear Algebra). The learning is measured by online quizzes posted on the class pages at CANVAS.Github page for all the Tutorials
Other Courses Taught at UChicago
Youngs Scholars Program (YSP)
I taught two courses in the YSP Program ( Young Scholars Program ) This is a program for talented high school students who would like to explore more advanced topics in Mathematics. The duration of the program is about four weeks.
In Summer 2021, I taught remotely on Zoom and shared responsibilities with another instructor. Several undergrad and recently graduated UChicago students helped us by actively working with students in Zoom breakout rooms.
In Summer 2023, I was the only instructor. Several undergrad and recently graduated UChicago students again worked with students during problem sessions.
The theme for both summers was Geometry. In Summer 2021, we decided to talk about topics at the intersection of Geometry and Linear Algebra. Besides teaching actively on Zoom, we created a curriculum taking students' level of knowledge into account. In Summer 2023, the course was about topics in Geometry and Linear Algebra. While I kept some previous parts, I updated the content significantly.
Some activites and more content might be posted later on this webpage.
Phoenix STEM Program (in September 2023, in September 2024)
September 2023: I taught three lectures of Calculus II, held three office hours and a two-hour problem sessions. In addition, I prepared and posted content for students in the Canvas course page.
September 2024: I taught three lectures of Calculus II, held four office hours, and worked with students during a two-hour group study and a two-hour problem sessions. A Box folder was used to share class content such as worksheets used during the program and other metacognitive worksheets.
Publications / Submitted Papers and Preprints
1. Eigenvalue inequalities for Klein-Gordon operators, Journal of Functional Analysis, 256(12) (2009) 3977–3995 (with E. Harrell).
2. An Improvement to a Berezin-Li-Yau type inequality
for the Klein-Gordon
Operator, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 138(11) (2010)
4059–4066.
3. Multidimensional lower bounds for the
eigenvalues of Stokes and
Dirichlet Laplacian operators, Journal of Mathematical Physics, 53(4)
(2012) 043508 (with T. Yolcu).
4. Bounds for the eigenvalues of the
fractional Laplacian, Reviews
in Mathematical Physics, 24(3) (2012) 1250003 (with T. Yolcu).
5. Estimates for the sums of eigenvalues
of the fractional Laplacian
on a bounded domain, Communications in Contemporary Mathematics, 15(3)
(2013)
1250048(with T. Yolcu) .
6. Heat trace of non-local operators,
Journal of the London
Mathematical Society, 87(1) (2013) 304–318 (with R. Banuelos).
7. Estimates on the eigenvalues of the
clamped plate problem, Journal
of Mathematical Physics, 54(4) (2013) 43515 (with T. Yolcu).
8. Eigenvalue bounds for the poly-harmonic
operators, Illinois
Journal of Mathematics 58(3) (2014) (with T. Yolcu)
9. Sharper estimates on the eigenvalues of
Dirichlet fractional Laplacian,
Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems – Series A, 35(5) (2015) 2209–
2225. (with T. Yolcu)
10. Refined Eigenvalue Bounds on the
Dirichlet Fractional Laplacian,
Journal of Mathematical Physics, 56 (2015) 073506 (with T. Yolcu).
11. Sharper estimates on the eigenvalues of the
Dirichlet fractional Laplacian
on a planar domain, Electronic Journal of Differential Equations, 2018
(165) (2018) 1–14 (with T. Yolcu).
12. Sharp Bounds for spectral functions of the Klein-Gordon operator, preprint (2010) (with L. Hermi).
Some Educational Resources
Metacognition for Teaching and Learning
Metacognition is knowing about one's own cognitive learning processes. Metacognition is first introduced by Flavell, please look at one of his articles to learn more about his perpective. With the amount of resources available on the internet, and adoption of more AI tools, knowing about one's own learning processes is becoming more important everyday. So, I have decided to collect some resources, presentations, reports and educational materials that I prepared for my students on this webpage and I hope you will also find them inspirational and useful.Using Internet Resources to Enhance Students' Learning
Please click here to see some activities that I created by using some tools and internet resources.
GeoGebra applets and Wolfram Notebooks
I frequently use technology to provide deeper understanding while teaching. For this purpose, I find GeoGebra applets and Wolfram Notebooks useful. For GeoGebra applets, please click here
For Wolfram Notebooks, please click hereSome Useful Gradescope Practices
Please click here for some tips and practices when using Gradescope.
2018-2019 Data Science Projects Completed
1 Million Women to Tech , Winter of Data (January 14- April 7, 2019)
Datathon project: Global Gender Gap Report
(Jupyter notebook including Python codes)
Bertelsmann-Udacity Data Foundations Nanodegree Program (Certification Date: October 4, 2018)
Data Science Projects (Certification Date: October 4, 2018)
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Projects completed using R (Statistics program) -- info will be posted later
Projects completed using Python -- info will be posted later
The University of Chicago Department of Mathematics
Association for Women in Mathematics