Mathematics
I earned my undergraduate degree in mathematics from the College of Saint Rose in 1999. My background in mathematics has been very valuable in my career as a Software Engineer and certainly now as I study Educational Psychology given that my research interests lie in field of study how children learn mathematics.
FractalJ
As an undergraduate independent study project I wrote an application to supplement a course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems. The original application was written inVisual Basic, but recently I’ve been porting the application to Java. In addition to the application being able to run on multiple platforms, One of the key improvments is a more modular design. This will allow for easy expantion of new features. The project is currently being hosted on Sourceforge.
Complex Roots of Quadratic Equations
For an undergraduated class in Complex Variables I researched the geometric representation of complex roots of quadratic equations with real variables. This research led to some very interesting ideas on how one can show these allusive roots using a varity of methods at many different levels of difficulty. My paper concentrated on two methods, one which remained in the Cartesian plane (where x and y are real), and the other envolved modulus surfaces. I presented this topic at the Fifth Annual Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (HRUMC) on April 18, 1998 at Union College in Schenectady, New York. My presentation focused on how this could be taught to students learning quadratic equations in both high school and college.
Links
- MAA – Mathematics Association of America
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
- HRUMC – Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference
- Bob Devaney’s Home Page – Great resource for teachers on topics related to Chaotic Dynamical Systems.
- Fractals Theme Page – Resources for teaching fractals.