The Ohio University Board of Trustees approved the formation of the Center of Ring Theory and its Applications in June of 2001. The Center is housed within the Department of Mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences.  The membership of the center consists of faculty from the various campuses of Ohio University as well as selected adjunct members from universities within the State of Ohio (Kent State University, Ohio State University, Bowling Green State University, and the University of Rio Grande).

The Center seeks to promote international cooperation between our members and similar research groups. Two of our current agreements are with Moscow State University and with the University of Murcia.

Since its creation, the Center has been active organizing and promoting academic and research activities. During the past six years, the Center has organized more than 70 tutorial lecture series, colloquium talks, and seminars. The Center has also sponsored four international conferences.  Two of these have been held in Athens, one at the Zanesville campus of Ohio University and the fourth one in India.  Each one of these conferences has generated a respective proceedings volume which has been published by venues such as the American Mathematical Society’s Contemporary Mathematics series and Birkhauser.

Our tutorial lecture series are always made available online.  Those interested may either participate live or access them afterwards following the appropriate links.

Overall, the Center has had more than 90 visitors since it was founded from all over the world sponsored by various sources in the United States or abroad.  These visits have lasted from one week to more than one year. Among other sources of funding, one can mention the Fulbright scholarship fund, The Japanese Academy of Sciences, The Korean Research Council, etc.

Without a doubt, the CRA has earned considerable recognition for itself, the Ohio University department of Mathematics, Ohio University and the State of Ohio. In its most recent review, the CRA received the following complementary remarks from the review board:

"The Ring Theory Center at OU Athens is a unique institution in that there is no comparable research center in Mathematics where ring theory and its applications are designated as the main subjects for advanced study. From this vantage point, the Center is well poised to make its special contributions to the world of mathematics".

"The scientific programs run by the Center have brought a constant stream of high-caliber visitors to Athens, making OU and the State of Ohio a hotbed of activities in ring theory, module theory, and coding theory."

"Students in ring theory noted that they had been attracted or guided to OU by the reputation of the ring theory group.  In this area, it appears that OU can legitimately claim to be a destination program."

"Among the ring theory students, I got a definite sense of a positive group dynamic.  It appears that this group has a critical mass of students, allowing them to interact with one another and support one another."