Dr. S. H. Sathish Indika, a mathematics professor at Virginia Peninsula Community College, recently added another publication to his impressive scholarly resume.
Indika and his longtime collaborator, Dr. Lawrence Leemis of William & Mary, published “Rational Function Horizontal Asymptote Crossings” in The Mathematical Gazette. The open-access manuscript became available to readers worldwide in early July.
The article addresses a common misconception among mathematics students. That’s a belief that the graph of a rational function cannot cross its horizontal asymptote. The two educators’ manuscript emphasizes although students learn that a graph cannot cross its vertical asymptotes, horizontal asymptotes can, in fact, be crossed or touched.
Indika’s research explains the mathematical conditions and calculations behind those crossings. It also provides examples instructors can use in undergraduate and advanced high school mathematics courses. Additionally, the article presents a systematic way for instructors to construct rational functions that meet prescribed conditions.
“I think these valuable additions are of great importance for both educators and students in mathematics,” said Indika.
He said The Mathematical Gazette, founded in 1894 by Edward M. Langley, was an ideal choice for this latest article because of its long history and international readership. It has featured work by prominent mathematicians and serves a worldwide community of mathematics educators, researchers and students.
“This journal publishes cutting-edge mathematical research by leading mathematicians in the world,” said Indika. “Some of the famous and iconic mathematicians published in this journal include Bertrand Russell, G. H. Hardy, and E. T. Whittaker.”
For Indika and Leemis, this newest work continues a longstanding collaboration. The professors first met in August 2004, when Indika began a master’s degree at William & Mary. Leemis taught several of his graduate courses. They stayed in touch while Indika pursued doctoral studies at Old Dominion University.
In 2024, their collaboration produced an article, “Exact Expressions for Trigonometric Functions,” in The College Mathematics Journal.
With a career that spans more than two decades, Indika has published roughly 15 articles since 2005. He’s covered a range of topics, including mathematics, statistics, medical research and other interdisciplinary areas. His 2023 publications included research on modeling the spread of COVID-19 in a spatio-temporal context.
Asked about the importance of publishing for educators, he firmly asserts publishing allows college educators to share new knowledge, teaching ideas and research with students and educators globally. Indika also sees peer review as a vital part of maintaining academic quality in published research.
He has straightforward advice for peers seeking to publish. He said fellow educators must understand research and manuscript preparation can take months or even years. So writers should develop multiple drafts, refine their work and maintain regular communication with research collaborators.
A native of Sri Lanka, Indika came to Hampton Roads as a graduate student. His academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Colombo and postgraduate study in operations research at the University of Moratuwa. He also holds master’s degrees in mathematics from New Mexico Tech, mathematical sciences from Clemson University and computer science from Williams & Mary. Additionally, he earned a Ph.D. in computational applied mathematics-statistics from Old Dominion.
At VPCC, where he began as an adjunct in 2005 and became full-time faculty in 2010, his latest research reflects the same goal that drives his teaching. That’s making mathematics more accessible while encouraging students to look beyond the formulas and question what they think they know.
