David S. Simmons graduated from UNT with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in December 2007. As an undergraduate, David was an enthusiastic tutor and excelled on the annual William Lowell Putnam exam. In fact, in recognition of David's excellent performance on the 67-th annual Putnam exam in December of 2007, David received a prestigious "Honorable Mention" in recognition of the fact that he scored among the top 50 participants that year.

As a graduate student, David has had broad mathematical interests. He chose to focus his research efforts in the area of dynamical systems. In the Spring of 2012, David successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on "Random Iteration of Rational Functions" under the direction of Professor Mariusz Urbański. As a graduate student, David submitted four research articles for publication, and he has several more preprints available. Lately, David has become interested in Diophantine approximation on fractals and has begun active collaboration with Professor Lior Fishman.

David will continue his mathematical research as a Zassenhaus Assistant Professor at Ohio State beginning in the fall semester of 2012.

When not proving theorems, David enjoys playing the piano.

In recognition of David's many outstanding contributions to mathematical knowledge, the UNT mathematics department was pleased to recognize him two years in a row as the Outstanding Graduate Student in Mathematics.