• 2006, Ph.D. in Mathematics, Brigham Young University, USA
  
• 2001, M.S. in Mathematics, Chongqing Uinversity, P.R. China
  
• 1998, B.S. in Mathematics Education, Chongqing Normal University, P.R. China

• August 2016--present: Professor, The University of Southern Mississippi.
  Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowed Chair in Mathematics and Undergraduate Research.
• August 2015 -- August 2016: Professor, Virginia State University.
• August 2011 -- August 2015: Associate Professor, Virginia State University.
• August 2007 -- August 2011: Assistant Professor, Virginia State University.
• August 2006 -- August 2007: Visiting Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary

1. 2020 USM REU site (Click Here to the program website).

1. The Department of Mathematics offers students the opportunity to apply for one of the Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Mathematics Undergraduate Research Scholarships. These scholarships are designed to support students to participate in undergraduate research in mathematics. The goal is to provide valuable educational experience for talented undergraduate students through participation in faculty’s ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed by or for the scholarship recipients.
2. Students majoring in mathematics, including students majoring in the BS in Mathematics with Licensure, at The University of Southern Mississippi are eligible. Mathematics majors or double majors are encouraged to apply. Academic excellence will be the main criterion for selection. Previous recipients who made satisfactory progress in their research are eligible for renewal.
3. Completion of some mathematics courses is required for most research projects. In general, MAT167 Calculus I, MAT168 Calculus II, and MAT 285 Introduction to Differential Equations are required. Research topics in applied mathematics or pure mathematics will be carefully chosen to be accessible to scholarship recipients with a suitable background in mathematics.
4. These Mathematics Undergraduate Research Scholarships are provided by the Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment with a stipend of up to $2,000 for each year. Travel support for conference presentations is also available. This is a competitive award and funds are limited. Eligibility does not guarantee an award. Some qualified applicants may receive a research assistantship from a professor’s grant.

Interested in the Scholarship or want to know more? Click Here.

1. Summer 2019, University of Southern Mississippi.
   Five students are partially supported by MAA-NREUP grant. Support for this MAA program is provided by the National Science Foundation (grant DMS-1359016).
   Two students are supported by Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment Scholarship
   Student Participants: Gokul Bhusal, Regen Mcgee, Jakolbia Shipmon (William Carey University), Jairus Simmons (Jackson State University), Lachan Terrell (William Carey University), Kimyia Youngblood (Alcorn State University), Tia Wilson
   Project: Allee Effects in a Predato-prey model with different functional response.
   
2. Fall 2018 -Spring 2019, University of Southern Mississippi.
   Supported by Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment Scholarship
   Student Participants: Gokul Bhusal, Nishchal Sapkota, Hamas Tahir
   Project topic: Central configurations; Allee effects in a food chain model.
   
3. Summer 2018, University of Southern Mississippi.
   Five students are partially supported by MAA-NREUP grant. Support for this MAA program is provided by the National Science Foundation (grant DMS-1359016).
   Three students are supported by Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment Scholarship
   Student Participants: Dwaneshia Holmes, Nicholas Burks, Teneala Spencer, Phillip Dabney, Michelle McCullum , Rimsha Bhatta, Nishchal Sapkota, Aaditya Kharel
   Project: Predato-prey model or food chain model with Allee Effects
   
4. Fall 2017 -Spring 2018, University of Southern Mississippi.
   Supported by Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment Scholarship
   Student Participants: Hamas Ullah Tahir, Gokul Bhusal,Scott Geyer, William Johnson (MSMS junior high)
   Project: Collinear Central Configurations and Super Central Configurations in Five-body Problem. Stacked Central Configurations for 6-body Problem.
   
5. Summer 2017, University of Southern Mississippi.
   2017 SURPM-USM was supported by the Wright W. and Annie Rea Cross Endowment and the Department of Mathematics at USM.
   Student Participants: Candice Davis, Hamas Ullah Tahir, Gokul Bhusal,Scott Geyer, William Johnson (MSMS junior high)
   Project: Collinear Central Configurations and Super Central Configurations in Five-body Problem. Stacked Central Configurations for 6-body Problem.
   
6. Spring 2017, University of Southern Mississippi.
   Particially supported by an NSF grant to Zhifu Xie (NSF-HRD 1661203).
   Student Participants: Candice Davis, Hamas Ullah Tahir, Gokul Bhusal.
   Project: Collinear Central Configurations in Five-body Problem.
7. Summer 2016, Co-supervised with Dr. Dawit Haile and Dr. Hui Chen
   Supported by Lockheed Martin grant to Dr. Dawit Haile and an NSF grant to Zhifu Xie (NSF-HRD1409939).
   Group One: Yaser Qazi, Chelsea Mitchell, Marco Ragland
   Project: Detecting Point Radiation Sources Using Distributed Sensors
   Group Two: Joy Hickman, Erick Huston, Komivi Tigossou
   Project: Voice and Environment Detection Using Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) and Segmentation
   All students presented their results at the 2016 Summer Undergraduate Research Mini Joint Conference VSU and CWM, College of William and Mary, June 28, 2016.
8. Summer 2016, co-supervised with Dr. Junping Shi
   Supported by an NSF grant to Zhifu Xie (NSF-HRD1409939) and the EXTREEMS-QED Program at College of William and Mary
   Undergraduate Researcher: Jasper Short III
   Project: Two-patch model under the Allee effect and logistic growth.
   He presented at the 2016 Summer Undergraduate Research Mini Joint Conference VSU and CWM, College of William and Mary, June 28, 2016.
9. Spring 2016
   Support for this program is provided by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), NSF grant DMS- 1345499
   Undergraduate Researchers: Briana Peebles, Jalessa Garba, Whitney Bradby.
   Project: AHP nuclear waste management
   Students wrote a research paper of their results and submitted a video presentation to PIC. They presented at the 2016 VSU Undergraduate Research Conference. Briana Peebles gave a poster presentation at the 2016 SIAM annual meeting at Boston in the PIC-Math session.
10. Fall 2015
    Funding Source: NSF-HRD1409939
    Undergraduate Researcher: Bruce Batson
    Project: Collinear central configurations and super central configurations.
11. Summer 2015, co-supervised with Dr. Dawit Haile
    This project was partially supported by the HBCU-UP summer program at VSU and an NSF-HRD1409939.
    Group One: Jasmine Jackson, Chad Sadler.
    Project: SEIHFR Epidemic Model for the Liberia Ebola Outbreak and the Efficacy of Intervention Measures
    Group Two: Ebony Albritton, Brandi Massey.
    Project:SEIR Model and Ebola Outbreak in Sierra Leone 2014-2015
    Both Brandi Massey and Jasmine Jackson received full travel award to present at the 2015 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) at Seattle, Washington from Nov. 11 to Nov. 15, 2015.
    Chad Sadler received full travel award to present at the 2016 Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM at Washington D.C. from February 25 to February 27.
    Ebony Albritton also present at the 2016 ERN conference.
    Jasmine Jackson received an oral presentation award in the 2016 VSU Graduate Research Symposium.
    Jasmine Jackson and Chad Sadler continued to work with me in Fall 2015 and Spring 2016. They submitted their research paper to a journal for publication.The first version was received very positive review but the second revision was rejected.
12. Spring 2015, PIC math program at VSU
    Support for this program is provided by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), NSF grant DMS- 1345499
    Group One: Brandon Harrington (Engineering), Electa McDowell, Danelle Singer, Marquise Stokes
    Project: Mitigating the Spread of Ebola in West Africa 2014-2015
    They gave a final oral recorded presentation.
    Group Two: Ashleigh Bell, Shane Dabney, Kendral Michael, Curits Jones, Janay Joseph
    Project: The Ebola Virus Disease in Liberia 2014-2015
    They submitted a final paper and a oral recorded presentation to PIC program.
    A poster presentation was also given in the PIC math session at the 2015 MathFest, Washington D.C.
13. Summer 2014, Co-supervised with with Dr. Dawit Haile
    This project was partially supported by MAA-NREUP grant. Support for this MAA program is provided by the National Science Foundation (grant DMS-1359016).
    Group One: Imani Wood, Janelle Williams, Janay Joseph
    Project: Investigating a three-species food chain model with a general predator and a specialist predator.
    Group Two: James Finnie, Joilah James, Robert Benson
    Project: A three-species food chain model with two specialist predators.
    Imani Wood presented their group research paper in the 2015 Virginia State University Annual Undergraduate Research conference, March 27, 2015.
    Both Janet Joseph and James Finnie received travel awards to present their group research paper in the 2015 Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM, Washington D.C. February 19-21, 2015.
14. Summer 2014, co-supervised with Yongjia Lu and Jing Zhang
    Partially supported by a summer research grant from VSU.
    Group One:Brandi Massey, Arrieyana Cartier
    Project: Price negotiation between two dominated companies
    Group Two: Jasmine Blocker, Monique Duru
    Project: A game model of the students' behavior in a group project
15. Summer 2013, co-supervised with Dawit Haile and Jing Zhang
    Partially supported by a summer research grant from VSU.
    Undergraduate Researchers: Erica Still and Candra Gross
    Project: Rich dynamical properties on the predator-prey food chain model.
    Students gave an oral presentation in the 2014 Undergraduate Research Conference at Virginia State University.
    
16. Fall 2010 and Spring 2011
    Partially supported by a Mini-Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (DMS 0636648) and Brigham Young University via the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM)
    Undergraduate Researchers: Krystolyn Henderson and Kenyaita Taylor-Hodge
    Kenyaita Taylor-Hodge was awarded the first-place prize in the oral mathematics presentation in the 2011 Emerging Research National (ERN) conference.
    Both Students presented at the 2011 CURM Conference at Brigham Young University.
    The resulting paper "Super Central Configurations of the Three-body Problem under the Inverse Integer Power Law" has been published in the Journal of Mathematical Physics 52 (2011) 092901.
17. Fall 2009 and Spring 2011
    Partially supported by a Mini-Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (DMS 0636648) and Brigham Young University via the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM)
    Undergraduate Researcher: Michael Westbrook
    He presented at the 2011 CURM Conference at Brigham Young University and submitted his final paper to CURM.
18. Spring and Summer of 2009
    Supported by a Research Initial Grant (Code 2137) of Virginia State University.
    The co-authored paper "Collinear Central Configurations in the n-body Problem with General Homogeneous Potential" was published in the Journal of Mathematical Physics 50, (2009), 102901.
    

1. Jing Zhang, Yongjin Lu, Zhifu Xie, Dawit Haile, Keith Williamson, Game Theory Approach on a University-Industry Collaboration Model. ASEE's 123rd Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, June 26-29, 2016, Paper ID#15345.
2. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Star pentagon and many stable choreographic solutions of the Newtonian 4-body problem. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 307 (2015), 61--76.
3. Dawit Haile, Zhifu Xie, Long-time behavior and Turing instability induced by cross-diffusion in a three species food chain model with a Holling type-II functional response. Mathematical Biosciences, 267 (2015), 134--148.
4. Duokui Yan, Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Classification of Periodic Orbits in the Planar Equal-mass Four-body Problem. Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications AIMS Proceedings, (2015) 1115--1124
5. Zhifu Xie,An Analytical Proof on Certain Determinants Connected with the Collinear Central Configurations in the $n$-body Problem. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 118 (2014), no. 1, 89--97.
6. Yongjin Lu, Zhifu Xie, Jing Zhang, An Analysis of the Stability and the Efficiency of a Cooperative Network among Companies, Universities and Local Government. f Journal of Game Theory, 2013, 2(3): 23-32.
7. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Number of Central Configurations and Singular Surfaces in Mass Space in the Collinear Four-body Problem. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society,364 (2012), 2909-2932.
8. Zhifu Xie, Chunshan Zhao, Blow-up Rate and Uniqueness of Singular Radial Solutions for a Class of Quasi-Linear Elliptic Equations. Journal of Differential Equations, 252 (2012) 1776-1788.
9. Zhifu Xie, Isosceles Trapezoid Central Configurations of the Newtonian Four-body Problem. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 142A (2012), 665-672.
10. Zhifu Xie, Cross-diffusion induced Turing instability for a three species food chain model. Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 388 (2012), 539-547.
11. Zhifu Xie, Kenyaita Hodge*, Michael Westbrook*, Krystolyn Henderson*, Super Central Configurations of the Three-body Problem under the Inverse Integer Power Law. Journal of Mathematical Physics, 52 (2011) 092901.
12. Zhifu Xie, The Golden Ratio and Super Central Configurations of the n-body Problem. Journal of Differential Equations, 251 (2011) 58-72.
13. Zhifu Xie, Central Configurations of the Collinear Three-body Problem and Singular Surfaces in the Mass Space. Physics Letters A, 375 (2011) 3392-3398.
14. Zhifu Xie, Turing instability in a coupled predator-prey model with different Holling type functional responses. Discrete and Continuous Dynamical System, Series S, 4 (2011) pp 1621-1628.
15. Junping Shi, Zhifu Xie, Kristina Little, Cross-diffusion induced instability and stability in reaction-diffusion systems. Journal of Applied Analysis and Computation, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2011) pp 95-119.
16. Zhifu Xie, Inverse Problem of Central Configurations and Singular Curve in the Collinear $4$-Body Problem. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy 107, (2010) pp 353-376.
17. Zhifu Xie, Super Central Configurations of the $n$-body Problem. Journal of Mathematical Physics 51, (2010) 042902.
18. Junping Shi, Zhifu Xie, Classification of four-body central configurations with three equal masses. Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications 363 (2010) pp512--524.
19. Mervin Woodlin*, Zhifu Xie, Collinear Central Configurations in the $n$-body Problem with General Homogeneous Potential. Journal of Mathematical Physics 50, (2009), 102901.
20. Zhifu Xie, General Uniqueness Results and Examples for Blow-up Solutions of Elliptic Equations. Discrete and Continuous Dynamical System, Supplement, (2009) pp828-837.
21. Zhifu Xie, Uniqueness and blow-up rate of large solutions for elliptic equation $-\triangle u=\lambda u-b(x)h(u)$. {\bf Journal of Differential Equations 247 (2009) pp344-363.
22. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Regularization of Simultaneous Binary Collisions and Periodic Solution with Singularity in the Collinear Four-Body Problem. Discrete and Continuous Dynamical System, Series A, Vol 24 (2009) pp909-932.
23. Huiqing Yang, Zhifu Xie, A Red-Black Gauss Seidel Parallel Algorithm for Solving Neumann Boundary Elliptic PDEs. the Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications PDPTA 2009, Volume II, Editor: Hamid R. Arabnia, pp539--545.
24. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, The Exact Boundary Blow-up Rate of Large Solutions for Semilinear Elliptic Problems. Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods and Applications, Vol 68(2008) pp 2791-2800.
25. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, The Uniqueness of Blow-up Solution for Radially Symmetric Semilinear Elliptic Equation. Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods and Applications, Vol. 64(2006) pp 2129-2142.
26. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Collinear Central Configuration in Four-body Problem. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, Vol. 93(2005), pp 147-166.
27. Tiancheng Ouyang, Zhifu Xie, Shiqing Zhang, Pyramidal Central Configurations and Perverse Solutions. Electronic Journal of Differential Equations, Vol. 2004(2004), No. 106, pp 1-9.
28. Shiqing Zhang, Zhifu Xie, Nested Regular Polygon Solutions of 2N-body Problem. Physics Letters A, Vol. 281(2001), pp 243-247.
29. Zhifu Xie, Qian Chen, Pyramidal Central Configurations for Spatial 5-body problems. Journal of Chongqing University(Natural Science Edition), Vol. 24(2001), No. 1, pp 122-126.
30. Zhifu Xie, Shiqing Zhang, A simpler proof of regular polygon solutions of the N-body problem. Physics Letters A, Vol. 277(2000), pp 156-158.
31. Weidong Meng, Ri Chen, Zhifu Xie, A study of the basic structure of the Elliott wave based on positive feedback investment. Forecast in China (in Chinese), Vol. 7(2000) pp 79-81.
32. Ri Chen, Weidong Meng, Zhifu Xie, A study of the lager feature of the Elliott wave based on positive feedback investment. Forecast in China (in Chinese), Vol. 7(2000) pp 82-87.
33. Weidong Meng, Ri Chen, Zhifu Xie, A study of the of the Fibonacci sequence phenomenal and the growth feature of the Elliot wave on positive feedback investment model. Forecast in China (in Chinese), Vol. 7(2000) pp 88-89.
34. Book Chapter:
    Zhifu Xie, Central configurations, super central configurations, and beyond in the n-body problem. Bridging mathematics, statistics, engineering and technology, 1--8, Springer Proc. Math. Stat., 24, Springer, New York, 2012

1. Co-Organizer (with Ernesto Perez-Chavela, Alessandro Portaluri), 11th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications, Special session on Celestial Mechanics, Orlando, Florida, USA, July 1 - July 5, 2016.
2. Co-Organizer (with Hui Chen, Junping Shi), 2016 Summer Undergraduate Research Mini Joint Conference VSU and CWM, College of William and Mary, June 28, 2016.
3. Co-Organizer (with Dawit Haile, Junping Shi), 2015 Summer Undergraduate Research Mini Joint Conference VSU and CWM, Virginia State University June 18, 2015.
4. Co-Organizer (with Tiancheng Ouyang, Duokui Yan), 10th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications, Special session on Central configurations, periodic solutions, variational method and beyond in celestial mechanics, Madrid, Spain,July 07 - July 11, 2014.
5. Co-Organizer (with Gareth Roberts), 2013 Joint Mathematical Meeting of AMS and MAA, Special session on Celestial Mechanics, San Diego, California, January 9-13, 2013.
6. Co-Organizer (with Junping Shi), 2010 Fall AMS Southeastern Section Meeting, special session on Differential Equations and Applications to Physics and Biology, Richmond, Virginia, USA, Nov 6--7, 2010.
7. Member of Organizing Committee, Spring 2010 MD-DCVA Section Meeting of the MAA, Virginia State University, USA, Apr. 16-17, 2010.

Previous Summer Programs