Mark D. LeBlanc
Professor of Computer Science
Office: Science Center Room 103
Phone: 508.286.3970
Fax: 508.286.8278
Email: mleblanc@wheatoncollege.edu
Personal web page
Degrees
Ph.D., M.S., University of New Hampshire
B.A., University of Maine
Main Interests
Designing computational sytlistic experiments in novel domains including Anglo-Saxon literature and DNA.
Empowering biology faculty and students to learn to solve problems in sequence analysis by programming. Perl for Exploring DNA. (2007, Oxford University Press).
Research Interests
The Genomics Group is an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students studying the DNA of various organisms, including work in genomic signatures and comparative genomics. Working in conjunction with faculty in biology, mathematics, and statistics who are involved in the Bioinformatics major, students and faculty in computer science run experiments and build new tools such as a DNA Dictionary for looking up your "favorite" DNA word.
Teaching Interests
Interdisciplinary Teaching in Genomics
CS and Biology -- "Linking" courses, team-teaching
DNA -- Teaching sequence analysis in Perl
New Courses
Storytelling Through Computer Animation (First-year seminar: Coming Fall 2008)
Discrete I for Computer Science
Computing for Poets -- RegEx, Perl, and 17th century poets
Other Interests
Our six sons.
Camp in Maine.
Reading biographies of each President in order (I'm on Roosevelt as of April 2008).
A year "down undah" ...
Student Projects
Recent 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.
Benz, Steve '05 and Cool, Jonah '04 (2003). Using Regular Expressions to Locate Putative Zinc Finger Binding Sites. Abstract appears in The Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, v18(4).
Villa, Adam '03 (2003). Giving DNA a Trie. Abstract appears in The Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, v18(4).
Student Software in Genomics
Building tools for scientists ...
Honors Theses
The Politics of Free: Open Source Software in Government.
Brian Donorfio '04
Supporting Analyses of Gene Regulation in DNA Neighborhoods
Adam Villa '03
Search Algorithms for Locating Potential Regulatory Motifs in the Promotors of the Kreb's Cycle Genes of Caenorhabditis elegans
Glen Aspeslagh '00
Utilizing a Genetic Algorithm to Search the Structure-space of Artificial Neural Networks for Optimal Architectures
Ken Aspeslagh '00
Service Learning
New database for information on 5000+ slides.
Norton Historical Society web page
Town of Norton prototype
Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances
New Book
LeBlanc, M.D. and Dyer, B.D. (2007). Perl for Exploring DNA. (Oxford University Press).
Recent Grants
LeBlanc, M. (PI), Drout, M. and Kahn, M. (July 2008 - June 2009). National Endowment for theHumanities ˆ NEH HD-50300-08 -- Pattern Recognition through Computational Stylistics: Old English and Beyond.
LeBlanc, M. and Dyer B. (May 2004 - May 2007). Two-year NSF grant: DUE-0340761 Teaching Genomics to Undergraduate Computer Science and Biology Majors: A model involving infusion and strategic linking. See Sample Educational Materials.
Dyer, B. and LeBlanc, M. (2002-2003). Two Workshops for Professors teaching Undergraduate Biology or Computer Science with an interest in incorporating Genomics (the analysis of DNA sequences) into their curricula. Two-year NSF grant: DUE-0126643.
Recent Workshops
Extremophiles and Spider Webs: Adventures in Genomics. Presented at ŒBringing Big Science to Small Schools: Genomics Curriculum Development Workshop‚ (with B. Dyer) at Vassar College, July 22, 2007.
Travels in "DNA Land" -- Approaching DNA sequence analysis with word play. Presented with Betsey Dyer (Biology, Wheaton College) at the 38th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Covington, KY, March 9, 2007.
Regular Expressions and DNA. Presented with Betsey Dyer (Biology, Wheaton College) at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) Bioinformatics Practicum (with B.Dyer), Bates College, June 20, 2006.
Travels in "DNA Land" -- Approaching DNA sequence analysis with word play. Presented with Betsey Dyer (Biology, Wheaton College) at the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Houston, TX, March 3, 2006.
Select Publications
Dyer, B.D., Kahn, M.J., and LeBlanc, M.D. (2007). Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analyses of genomic signatures reveal sets of tetramers that discriminate temperature optima of Archaea and Bacteria. Archaea 2:159-167.
LeBlanc, M.D. and Leibowitz, R. (2006). Discrete Partnership -- A case for a full-year of Discrete Math. Proceedings of 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Houston, TX, 313-317.
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. With Sylvia Weber-Russell (UNH). The Journal of the Learning Sciences, v13(2), 197-220.
Dyer, B.D., LeBlanc, M.D., Benz, S., Cahalan, P., Donorfio, B., Sagui, P.,
Villa, A., and Williams, G. (2004). A DNA motif lexicon: cataloguing and annotating sequences. In Silico Biology, v4, 0039. http://www.bioinfo.de/isb/2004/04/0039/
LeBlanc, M. and Dyer, B. (2003). Teaching together: A three-year case study in genomics. The Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, v18(5), 85-95. This paper won the Best Paper Award for 2003.
Dyer, B. and LeBlanc, M. (2002). Meeting Report: Incorporating Genomics Research into Undergraduate Curricula. Cell Biology Education, Winter Issue, 2002, 101-104.
LeBlanc, Aspeslagh '00, Buggia '01, and Dyer (2000). An annotated catalogue of inverted repeats of Caenorhabditis elegans Chromosome III with observations concerning odd/even biases and conserved motifs, Genome Research. v10(9): 1381-1392.
LeBlanc, M.D. (1999). Service learning in computing. The Journal of Computing in Small Colleges, v14(4): 173-181. This paper won the Best Paper Award for 1999.