July was a busy—and global—month for Dr. Tom Cuchta of Marshall University’s Department of Mathematics and Physics. He was an invited speaker at not one, but two international conferences spotlighting cutting-edge research in mathematical theory.
First stop: Guangzhao, China, for the 30th International Conference on Difference Equations and Applications (ICDEA 2025). Dr. Cuchta co-organized a special session on “Recent advances on time scales and its relation to difference equations” with Dr. Alex Lyapin of Siberian Federal University. The session brought together experts from the U.S., India, Japan, and Russia, continuing a long-standing global tradition—previous ICDEA conferences have taken place in France, Thailand, and soon Italy (2026).
Next, Dr. Cuchta headed stateside to Miami, Florida, for the 4th Mathematical Congress of the Americas (MCA 2025)—the first time this prestigious quadrennial event has been hosted in the U.S. There, he gave an invited talk in a session focused on dynamic equations on time scales and their wide-ranging applications.
At both conferences, Dr. Cuchta presented his latest work in time scales calculus, a mathematical framework that unifies discrete and continuous analysis into a single, powerful theory. His talk introduced a novel extension of the famous Bessel functions to time scales—functions that have helped solve wave equations and more for centuries.