Faculty and Staff

Melkamu Zeleke

Professor • Department of Mathematical Sciences

I joined William Paterson University after receiving my PhD in Mathematics from Temple University in 1998 under the guidance of Doron Zeilberger, a renowned Experimental Mathematician and tireless advocate of change in ways we do and teach mathematics. Teaching mathematics with passion gives me great pleasure and the success of my students in their learning is my guiding light. I wholeheartedly believe that all humans have innate ability to learn everything, including mathematics, and work very hard to make sure that students are getting what they need to learn the concepts presented to them in my classes.

My general research interest is in Combinatorics, a branch of modern mathematics with applications in computer science, probability theory, data analysis & algorithms. I have published peer reviewed research papers in reputable mathematics journals, including the Annals of Combinatorics and Advances in Applied Mathematics. Currently, I study Riordan arrays and their applications in Combinatorics. Riordan arrays equipped with Shapiro’s multiplication rule form a group, and this group provides an interesting framework to solve combinatorial problems. I am a Fellow of the Institute of Combinatorics & its Applications and serve as a referee for several mathematics journals.

I served as chair of the Mathematics Department from July 2004 to June 2010 and am currently serving as Associate Dean of the College of Science and Health. I am also a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board award and served as a US Fulbright Scholar at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia from August 2010 to June 2011.

Professional Interests

Conducting research in enumerative combinatorics and mentoring students. 

Other Interests

Sports: Tennis, Basketball, and Soccer; World History; Classic Movies.

Degrees

PhD Mathematics, Temple University Philadelphia, PA

Specialization

Combinatorics and Number Theory

Representative Publications


On the Mobius Function of a Pointed Graded Lattice; , Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics; Volume 49, 2018
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13226-018-0255-x


On Subsets of Ordered Trees Enumerated by a Subsequence of Fibonacci Numbers ; , Proceedings of INTEGERS 2013 conference: The Erdos Centennial; Volume 15A, 2015
http://math.colgate.edu/~integers/vol15a.html

Representative Presentations


On Combinatorial Interpretations of Shapiro’s Identities Involving some Elements of the Bell Subgroup.
Joint Mathematics Meetings AMS Special Session American Mathematical Society
Baltimore, MD 2019


On Shapiro's Identities Involving the Elements of Lagrange and Bell Subgroups
The 5th International Conference on Riordan Arrays and Related Topics Applied Algebra and Optimization Research Center, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Busan, 2018


Riordan Arrays and their Applications in Combinatorics
International Science Symposium Adama Science and Technology University
Adama, 2016


On Subsets of Ordered Trees Enumerated by a Subsequence of Fibonacci Numbers
Algorithmic and Enumerative Combinatorics Summer School Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC)
Hagenberg, 2014


On Subsets of Ordered Trees Enumerated by a Subsequence of Fibonacci Numbers
Experimental Mathematics Seminar Rutgers University
Piscataway, NJ 2013

Awards and Honors

Fulbright
J. William Fulbright Scholarship Board
01/01/2010

Distinguished Teaching Award
Temple University
05/01/1997

Gold Medal for Outstanding Student of the Year
Addis Ababa University
07/01/1989

Notable Courses Taught

Selected Topics in Algebraic & Enumerative Combinatorics, Advanced Discrete Mathematics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Logic & Methods of Higher Mathematics.

3050 Hennings Science East

By appointment