Volume 6 | Eighth Issue | Summer 2005 | Archived Issues
From the Keyboard
Connections
The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as:
"The condition of being related to something else by a bond of interdependence, causality, logical sequence, coherence, or the like; relation between things one of which is bound up with, or involved in, another."
At Wheaton, the new curriculum features 'Connections', an exciting way to explore different areas of knowledge and different approaches to problems. All Wheaton students must take either two sets of two-course connections (a total of four courses), or one set of three connected courses. Courses are linked across any two of six academic areas: creative arts, humanities, history, natural sciences, social sciences, and math and computer science.
In our Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, connections to and with other disciplines has always been a natural and the Department's faculty are participating in an impressive suite of innovative connections:
- Voting Theory, Math and Congress connects Math 217 Voting Theory with Pols 311 Congress and the Legislative Process
- Graphic Design and Web Programming connects Comp 161 Web Programming, Graphics, and Design with Arts 250 Graphic Design I
- Top Secret connects Math 202 Cryptography with Pols 229 United States Foreign Policy or Pols 379 National Security Policy or Econ 361 Industrial Organization and Public Policy
- The Calculus of Microeconomics connects Math 102 Calculus with Economic Applications and Econ 102 Introduction to Microeconomics or Econ 112 Introduction to Microeconomics
- Logic and Programming connects Phil 125 Logic with Comp 115 Programming Fundamentals
- Communication through Art and Mathematics connects Arts 250 Graphic Design I and Math 127 Colorful Mathematics
- Poetry and the Computer connects Comp 131 Computing for Poets and Eng 313 Renaissance Poetry
- Communicating Information connects Eng 280 Professional and Technical Writing and Math 211 Discrete Mathematics
- Computer Architecture connects Comp 220 Computer Organization and Assembly Language and Phys 110 Electronic Circuits
- The Math in Art and the Art of Math connects Math 122 Math in Art and Arth 102 Great Works II
- Science FACTion connects Math 123 The Edge of Reason and Eng 243 Science Fiction
- Learning to Learn in Math and Science connects Educ 371 Early Childhood Curriculum or Educ 381 Elementary Curriculum with Int 110 or Int 111 Ponds to Particles and Math 133 Concepts of Mathematics
- Math Tools for Chemistry connects Chem 355/356 Physical Chemistry I and II with Math 221 Linear Algebra or Math 236 Multivariable Calculus
- Math of Chemical Analysis connects Chem 331/332 Analytical Chemistry I and II with Math 151 Accelerated Statistics
- Genes in Context connects Comp 242 DNA or Comp 215 Algorithms or Bio 211 Genetics or Bio 307 Cell Evolution with Phil 111 Ethics
Welcome to our eighth issue of our department online mag. In our alumnae/i slot, we give evidence to our contention that mathematics and computer science is exciting! We feature two graduates: Liane Currier '01 and Brendan Thurber '00. We share department news including recent award recipients and provide a peek at yet another spectacular evening at the Norman Johnson Lecture Series. Finally, we update you on the department faculty and their impressive array of scholarship.
Thank you for your responses to our previous issue. Send us an email ... we love hearing from you. Enjoy v6 of The Integral!
Our Alumnae/i
We highlight two recent alums, Liane Currier '01 and Brendan Thurber '00. We recently asked them to reflect back on their not so distant Wheaton days...
Liane Currier, Class of 2001
"I learned a lot from my Wheaton Computer Science experience. First, I was able to get my job, a programmer with Digital Credit Union, because I was familiar with many different applications. I found that you don't need to be an expert in one language or one skill. I am currently using a very old language that was not taught at Wheaton, but because of my background in C/C++, I was able to pick it up very quickly. Lastly, Wheaton encouraged me to be open and communicate. Wheaton definitely taught me the value of conversation and people skills when solving problems together, and these skills I use daily."
Brendan Thurber, Class of 2000
"My Computer Science education at Wheaton has proven valuable in my current position as a software developer at Raytheon in ways I would not have expected. I occasionally think back to dealing with Professors Gousie and LeBlanc while I am dealing with my colleagues here at work. I learned to balance my own strong opinions with those of my colleagues in a professional manner. At Wheaton, I learned to balance my opinions while being open to others, as in knowing how and when to ask for help. The Programming Languages course exposed me to a number of languages in order to be a versatile and quick learner. The Software Engineering course I found to be quite pertinent, although I didn't think it would be at the time. This course gave me a view into the professional world, showing me that coding is only one part of the problems I would confront and that programming comprises only 20-30% of my time. I think the highlight of my education at Wheaton (other than playing basketball with the faculty) was the accessibility of the faculty and their willingness to spend whatever time was necessary to get to know me better as a student and a person. I am a better person and employee for it."
News Bytes
2005 Fred Kollett Prize in Mathematics and Computer Science
Two students shared this year's Kollett Prize. To win the award, students must excel academically in Mathematics or Computer Science and be actively involved in the college community outside the classroom.
Isaac Foster, Class of 2006 is the math student with the greatest potential that we've seen in years. He has what we like to call "The Gift." A way of describing The Gift might be, 'Penetrating insight, combined with flashes of brilliance.' Combining The Gift with a work ethic that would shame a Puritan, Isaac has made outstanding contributions in all of his math classes this year and raised the general level of discourse in them. His questions are pertinent and thought-provoking and his answers are as swift and deadly as arrows. The write-ups of his proofs often involve intriguing and creative approaches. More than this, though, Isaac is very active in the Wheaton community in a number of ways. He is the president of the Ski Club and a Senator. He was instrumental in dreaming large enough to turn what might have been a quotidian discussion on civil liberty into a mega-event that was one of the finest evenings I've ever spent at Wheaton: A debate between Representative Barney Frank and former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh on the merits and problems of the US Patriot Act. Isaac lined up both participants, negotiated fees, found monies to pay them, organized the debate format, generated questions, and moderated the packed Hindle + overflow rooms event. He pulled it off with easy grace and provided Wheaton students with fodder for discussion for weeks. And all this on the night of a major blizzard that closed down the roads! We look forward for more great things from Isaac next year.
Stephen Benz, Class of 2005 is a classic scholar of the liberal arts and sciences. A computer science major with a double minor in biochemistry/bioinformatics and music composition, Stephen's four years at Wheaton are equal to the levels of excellence in computer science, mathematics, and community service inherent in the Kollett Award. Keenly aware of the genomic revolution occurring in the life sciences, Stephen forged connections between disciplines with a passion that was out in front but in spirit with Wheaton's new curriculum. Combining studies in computer science, biology, chemistry, and mathematics, Stephen applied his classroom understanding and lab skills in significant research positions, including roles as lead programmer for Wheaton's Genomics Research Group and two summers as an intern at the Buck Cancer Institute. His academic time found him modeling life as a graduate student that included four conference presentations and co-author on two journal publications, one as primary author. In community life, Stephen served in a similar relentless fashion. After three years serving in the Student Government Association (SGA), Stephen served his senior year on the executive board, installed a Content Management System, and served as web- master. Stephen also implemented Wheaton's first web-based voting software for student elections. The software has increased student voting by 400% since it was written, has allowed the SGA to more accurately and efficiently run elections, and is presently in use in a fifth election. In addition, Stephen's repertoire includes musical and leadership talent. Since the fall of 2002, he has served as the musical director of 'The Blend', a co-ed a cappella group, arranging approximately twenty songs for the group and leading them to cut their first CD.
Norman Johnson Lecture
This year's Norman Johnson Lecture was delivered by Ezra "Bud" Brown, Professor of Mathematics at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His talk to a full-house in Hindle Auditorium was entitled: "Love Letters, Circe's Cave, and Choclate Key Cryptography."
Electronic transfer of money, digital case, computer security are all made possible by Public Key Cryptography -- learn about the mathematics behind this important system of sending secret messages.
Mathematics Colloquium
Wheaton hosted The Bridgewater State - Stonehill - Wheaton Mathematics Colloquium and featured Professor Carlos Curley of Stonehill College. Professor Curley presented "Another elementary proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra".
Class of 2005 Majors
Stephen Benz, Computer Science
Steve Bowe, Computer Science
Meg Dombi, Mathematics
Matt McKenna, Mathematics
Andrew Phillips, Computer Science
Lindsay Tirrell, Mathematics
More details of student talks, research projects, groups and abstracts are available at the student's computer science web page (http://cs.wheatoncollege.edu) and our department web page.
Faculty Highlights
Our department staff currently numbers eight full-time members and two part-time members, all PhD's. We share some of our faculty highlights.
Bill Goldbloom-Bloch
Associate Professor of Mathematics
bbloch@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publications
"The Unimagined: Catalogues and the Book of Sand in the Library of Babel," to appear in the international literary journal Variaciones Borges, June 2005
Article featuring a new connection
"Top Secret: Exploring the Intersections among Secure Communications, International Politics and Public Policy," The Global Dispatch, Fall 2004, p.3
Mike Gousie
Associate Professor of Computer Science
mgousie@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publications
Gousie, M.B. and Franklin, W.R. (2005). Augmenting Grid-Based Contours to Improve Thin Plate DEM Generation. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, V71(1), pp. 69-79.
Grants
Summer 2004 Davis Education Grant to fund the development of a new course: COMP 161 -- Web Programming, Graphics, and Design. This was offered for the first time in the fall of 2005. The course combines several Web tools, such as DreamWeaver and Fireworks, with Java programming to create truly interactive and attractive Web pages.
Summer 2004 Mars Fellow with Steven Bowe '05. Steve developed software for determining errors in digital elevation models (a file of elevation points on a regular grid that desribe geographic terrain). He also developed ways to visualize the errors on shaded relief maps.
Presentations
Targeting Social Stratification, with John Grady (Sociology, Wheaton College). Presented at the Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association, August 11-13, 2004. Web-based tool for visualizing census data (prototype)
Math for Non-Mathers: Using Math and Programming in Everyday Life. Faculty Lunch Series, March 2, 2005.
Random Stuff
Steven Bowe '05 presented a poster at this year's Academic Festival: Error Detection and Visualization in Digital Elevation Models. He also presented at this year's CCSCNE-2005 Conference, and published his abstract in the associated journal Computing in Colleges, Spring 2005 issue.
Mike was elected editor 2004-2007 of the Consortium for Computing in College and will serve again as Conference Papers co-chair this year.
Mike will serve as the Resident Director (RD) for Global Studies in England for the fall 2005 semester, living in the tiny town of Kingston in Sussex, England. Along with his family, he'll be heading out in mid-July in the hopes of doing some travelling and sightseeing before the students arrive at the end of August. They will also be visiting relatives in Germany and showing off his two sons. A couple of aunts have seen Luke, but nobody has seen Adam. In addition to his duties as RD, Mike has a London contact who is an expert on DEM's and he hopes to collaborate on some research in regards to computing error measures on DEM's.
Michael Kahn
Associate Professor of Mathematics and Director of Quantitative Analysis
mkahn@wheatoncollege.edu |
website
Publications
"Parenting, Education and Well-Being: The Case of Jamaican Men and Women" with Michelle Harris (Sociology, Wheaton College) to be published in the September, 2005 issue of Wadabagei.
Mark LeBlanc
Professor of Computer Science
mleblanc@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publications
LeBlanc, M.D. and Dyer, B.D. (2004). Bioinformatics and Computing Curricula 2001 -- Why Computer Science is well positioned in a post-genomic world. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, v36(4), Dec. 2004, 64-67.
Russell, S.W. and LeBlanc, M. (2004). Learning By Seeing By Doing: Arithmetic Word Problems. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, v13(2), 197-220.
Dyer, B.D., LeBlanc, M.D., Benz, S. '05, Cahalan, P. '05, Donorfio, B. '04, Sagui, P. '04, Villa, A. '03, and Williams, G. '04 (2004). A DNA motif lexicon: cataloguing and annotating sequences. In Silico Biology, v4, 0039. Article
Student Publications
Benz, Steve '05, Grossman, Robbie '07, Dyer, B., and LeBlanc, M. (2004). Genomics Research and the Liberal Arts: Building a Database for Exploring Your Favorite Set of Genes (favGene v2.0). Transformations-Liberal Arts in the Digital Age, v2(1), May 2004. Article
Grants
LeBlanc, M. and Dyer B. (May 2004 - May 2006). Two-year NSF CCLI grant: DUE-0340761 Teaching Genomics to Undergraduate Computer Science and Biology Majors: A model involving infusion and strategic linking. Sample Educational Materials
Random Stuff
Mark and his family (sans Jacob LeBlanc '06 who is in Spain) spent the year in Wollongong Australia. Mark served as the Resident Director for Global Studies for Australia and New Zealand. You can check out some of their exploits down undah, mate!
Shelly Leibowitz
Professor of Mathematics
rleibowi@wheatoncollege.edu |
website
Presentations
"What's Special About January 2, 2010?" at the "How to Make Math Count" Conference, sponsored by Nassau County Mathematics Teachers Association, Molloy College, Rockville Centre, NY, January 7, 2004.
Faculty Luncheon Talk: "'NeVEr Odd Or EveN' The Mathematics of Palindromes", Wheaton College, Norton, MA, March 11, 2004.
Talk and Session Organizer: "Bio-Math Connect Institute 2004" at the "Linking Mathematics and Biology in the High Schools" Conference, sponsored by the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, April 29-30, 2005.
Random Stuff
Associate Editor and Editor of the DIMACS Educational Module Series, located at Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
DIMACS: Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science
Conference Organizer for "Reconnect 04" Topic: ("Computational Molecular Biology") "Reconnect 2- and 4-Year College Faculty to the Mathematical Sciences Enterprise", funded by the National Science Foundation, held at the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS), Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, Conference dates: August 9 - 15, 2004 (7 days).
Conference Organizer for DIMACS Connect Institute 2004 (The Interface between the Biological and the Mathematical Sciences at the High School Level), funded by the National Science Foundation, held at Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, July 18 - 30, 2004 (2 weeks).
Math 211: Discrete Mathematics (sophomore-level course which serves as a bridge between foundational courses and theoretical courses in math and computer science.) Every ten years or so, the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM) of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) issues recommendations for undergraduate programs and courses in the mathematical sciences. The report recently released includes six main recommendations, and for each recommendation, they've created a list of illustrative resources that are on the CUPM website. Under the resources for the general recommendation to "Develop mathematical thinking and communication skills", Shelly's Discrete Math course is cited for being writing intensive. Article
Lisa Michaud
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
lmichaud@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publications
Michaud, Lisa N. and Kathleen F. McCoy (2004). "Empirical Derivation of a Sequence of User Stereotypes." Journal of User Modeling and User-Adaptive Interfaces.
Tommy Ratliff
Associate Professor of Mathematics and Department Chair
tratliff@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Presentations
"Selecting committees", at the 2005 Annual Meetings of the Public Choice Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 11, 2005.
"Waffle cones, ribbons, and barbershop poles", as part of the Bridgewater-Stonehill-Wheaton Mathematics Colloquium Series, at Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, November 8, 2004.
"Getting your students to read their calculus text", an invited workshop for Project NExT, at MathFest, Providence, Rhode Island, August, 10, 2004.
"Selecting committees" to the Graduate Student Seminar at the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine, May 20, 2004.
"A graph theoretic approach to the selection of committees" at the Institute of Public Economics, Graz University, Austria, March 16, 2004.
"Selecting committees with incomplete preferences" at the workshop Analysis and Design of Electoral Systems at Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, Germany, March 10, 2004.
Random Stuff
Tommy was elected Vice-Chairperson of the Northeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America which includes the six New England States of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont and the four Canadian Provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Tommy will take over as Chairperson of the Section after the November Section meeting this fall.
Chuck Straley
Quantitative Analysis Associate
straley_harrison@wheatoncollege.edu
Publications
"The R. L. Moore Method at the Secondary Level", with David McRae, monograph, Educational Advancement Foundation, May, 2004.
"Modified R. L. Moore Discovery Teaching in Various Settings", monograph, Educational Advancement Foundation, May, 2004.
"Mathematical Modeling in High School", The Consortium, COMAP, Fall/Winter, 2004.
Presentations
"Modified R. L. Moore Discovery Teaching in Various Settings", The Legacy of R.L. Moore Conference, March 14, 2004.
"A Workshop on Mathematical Modeling for High School Teachers", New Hampshire Teachers of Mathematics 41st Spring Conference, March 25, 2004.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, Mathematics Consortium Conference, Wheaton College, March 29, 2004.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, Faculty Luncheon Series, Wheaton College, April 21, 2004.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, North Texas Association of Advanced Placement Mathematics, Plano Senior High School, Plano Texas, April 24, 2004.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, Math Fest, Mathematical Association of America Summer Meetings, August 14, 2004.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, Association of Teachers of Mathematics in New England Annual Conference, October 22, 2004.
"Whose Best, An Application of Graph Theory", Association of Teachers of Mathematics in New England Annual Conference, October 22, 2004.
"Mathematics and Religion an Unholy Alliance", Faculty Luncheon Series, March 10, 2005.
Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia Section of MAA, April 2, 2005.
Random Stuff
Harrison Straley, better known as Chuck is in his second year as Quantitative Analysis Associate. Chuck's over forty year career includes teaching mathematics at most grade levels from kindergarten through graduate school. He teaches Concepts of Mathematics and Introductory Statistics and helps Mike Kahn with the Quantitative Analysis Resource Center. Chuck's research interests include mathematics education especially discovery learning and mathematics history as well as the use of drama to motivate interest in mathematics and the sciences. He, his wife and his son have written two plays "The Discovery of Calculus, Wilhelm Leibniz versus Isaac Newton" and "Isaac Newton, A Dramatic Lecture". The first play has been presented at Wheaton by each of his "Concepts" classes. Both plays have been placed in the public domain in an effort to encourage teachers to use drama and mathematics history to motivate students to learn and study mathematics.
Chuck is Assistant Director of the Mathematics Olympiad Summer Program. This program sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America prepares the country's best high school mathematics students to represent the United States at the annual International Mathematics Olympiad.
The Integral
Integral v6 - Summer 2005
Archived Issues | Computer Science | Mathematics
Wheaton College
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Norton, Massachusetts 02766
Phone: 508.286.3970
Fax: 508.285.8278
Editor: Mark LeBlanc, Professor of Computer Science
mleblanc@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Graphics Design: Nick Ralton, '07
nralton@wheatoncollege.edu