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Joint Meetings:
I will be attending the 2009 Joint Meetings in Washington, DC. Please contact me if you would like to arrange an interview.

Research

Undergraduate Research:

As an undergraduate, I twice had the opportunity to work with individual faculty members on research projects. Without these experiences I am not sure I would have gone to graduate school. With them, I could not imagine doing anything else. My mentors were eager to hear my ideas and were patient when I struggled with new concepts. They were excited when we stumbled upon an interesting example or made a new insight. I look forward to providing undergraduates with similar experiences.

My research in Legendrian knot theory has complex geometric underpinnings. However, much of the complexity can be put aside and the theory can be reduced to combinatorics and algebra without losing computational power. The combinatorial and algebraic theory requires little more than multivariable calculus and linear algebra. Interesting examples are plentiful and easy to visualize and open questions are easy to pose. This area is ripe for undergraduate investigation and there is precedent for undergraduates making very meaningful contributions to current research.

REU Participant

During the summer of 2002, I participated in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Geometric Visualization at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. The program director was Prof. George Francis and my mentor was Prof. Karen Shuman. I worked with Prof. Shuman to create "The Illustrated Analyst," a piece of software that provides 3-dimensional, graphical information on a variety of functions, Fourier transforms, and convolutions. I presented this work at the 2002 MAA Mathfest conference in Burlington, VT.

Earl Beling Scholar

In 2002, I was an Earl Beling Scholar in mathematics at Augustana College. This honor allowed me to work one-on-one with Prof. Thomas Bengtson on the topic of symplectic matrices and present our results at the 2003 Mathfest in Boulder, CO and at the 2003 Illinois MAA Conference in Jacksonville, IL.