Mathematics Faculty and Staff

Melrose 201/Taylor 214
503-883-2308

mvcleave@linfield.edu
https://catfiles.linfield.edu/People/Faculty/mvcleave/public/

Education: PhD, Mathematics Education, Oregon State Univeristy, 1999, MSEd, Mathematics Education, Western Oregon State College, 1985, BA, Mathematics, Linfield College, 1975 Magna cum laude

Academic Interests: Dr. VanCleave's current interests are in undergraduate mathematics education and mathematics teacher preparation. She works with both preservice and inservice teachers. Her current research is on student discourse in mathematics classrooms. The Oregon Mathematics Leadership Institute (OMLI) has provided a perfect venue for pursuing this interest.
Her dissertation research focused on the beliefs and practices of high school teachers and the use of graphing calculators. She is currently examining the effects of participation in an MSP project of student discourse in higher-education faculty's classrooms. First year courses such as Intermediate Algebra, Precalculus, and Finite Math With Calculus along with Statistics and Mathematics For Elementary Teachers compose the bulk of Dr. VanCleave's teaching load. She also has an interest in Operations Research and has developed a special topics course in that area. As a mathematics educator, she advises many of Linfield's prospective high school math teachers.

Taylor 208
503-883-2260

sbricher@linfield.edu

Education: Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1991. B.A., Mathematics, Linfield College, 1986, Summa cum Laude.

Academic Interests: Dr. Bricher's research interests are in the area of nonlinear-partial differential equations, which can be used to model a myriad of physical phenomena. A few examples are: neuron activity, thermal combustion and flame propagation, the microstruture of metals, turbulence and weather patterns. He has published several papers on mathematical problems related to combustion, and has presented his work at national and international mathematics conferences. Dr. Bricher teaches a course in nonlinear differential equations and dynamical systems that prepares students to work with him on collaborative research projects. Projects in the past have culminated in student presentations at national mathematical meetings. He regularly teaches courses in calculus, analysis, differential equations, and probability and mathematical statistics. He advises physics theses and often helps science students with their mathematical questions. Dr. Bricher enjoys advising students that share an interest in mathematics.

Publications:
Please contact Dr. Bricher for copies of his reprints.

Hobbies

Dr. Bricher is an avid road cyclist. During the summer he can often be found riding the roads of Yamhill County contemplating his research problems and cursing air resistance's velocity squared dependence.

Taylor 210
503-883-2273

cdunn@linfield.edu
https://catfiles.linfield.edu/People/Faculty/cdunn/public/

Education: Ph.D., Mathematics, Arizona State University; M.S., Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; B.A., Mathematics & Music, Lewis & Clark College

Academic Interests: Dr. Dunn's research interests are in graph theory and combinatorics. In graph theory, he focuses on competitive graph coloring algortithms. In the summers of 2008, 2009 and 2012, he worked with Jennifer Nordstrom and 15 students through the NSF-funded Willamette Valley Consortium for Mathematics Research. Part of work centered on classifying trees and forests relative to their game chromatic number. The remainder of the projects concerned variations of the relaxed coloring game. In combinatorics, he recently collaborated and had a paper accepted on higher dimensional lattice chains and Delannoy numbers. During the summer of 2013, he worked with Mike Hitchman on problems concerning tilings and tiling invariants.

Download Complete CV

Publications:

C. Dunn, "Complete multipartite graphs and the relaxed coloring game,'' Order, to appear. J. Caughman, C. Dunn, N. Neudauer, C. Starr, "Counting lattice chains and Delannoy paths in higher dimensions,'' Discrete Mathematics, to appear. C. Dunn, J. Firkins Nordstrom, C. Naymie, E. Pitney, W. Sehorn, C. Suer, "Clique-relaxed graph coloring,'' Involve, to appear. C. Dunn, "The Relaxed Game Chromatic Index of k-Degenerate Graphs," Discrete Mathematics, 307 (2007) 1767-1775. C. Dunn, H.A. Kierstead, "A Simple Competitive Graph Coloring Algorithm III,'' Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 92 (2004) 137-150. C. Dunn, H.A. Kierstead, "The Relaxed Game Chromatic Number of Outerplanar Graphs,'' Journal of Graph Theory, 46 (2004) 69-78. C. Dunn, H.A. Kierstead, "A Simple Competitive Graph Coloring Algorithm II,'' Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 90 (2004) 93-106.

Favorite Quote

"Tend to where you are." (Barbara Sinclair, my 9th grade English teacher)

Taylor 212
503-883-2430

mhitchm@linfield.edu
https://catfiles.linfield.edu/People/Faculty/mhitchm/public/

Education: Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Oregon. B.A., Mathematics, Swarthmore College.

Academic Interests: Dr. Hitchman's research interests are in the areas of topology and geometry. He has more recently been interested in the interplay between topology and geometry in the area of cosmic topology, whose aim is to detect the shape of the universe. He is also interested in collaborative research with students on tiling questions. He enjoys teaching a wide range of courses, including calculus, topology, geometry, real analysis, probability and statistics, and astronomy.

Publications:

M. Hitchman, Geometry with an Introduction to Cosmic Topology, Jones and Bartlett, Boston (2009) M. Hitchman, "An Identity Property for 2-complex pairs," Glasgow Math. J, 42 (2000), pp. 299-318

Taylor 211
503-883-2576

xluo@linfield.edu

Education: Ph.D., Applied Mathematics, Michigan State University; M.S., Statistics, Michigan State University; B.S., Mathematics, Beijing Jiaotong University. PhD Michigan State University

Academic Interests: 1. Theoretical and Numerical Methods for Inverse Problems
2. Nonlinear Volterra Integral Equations
3. Local Regularization Methods
4. Nerocomputation
5. Inverse Problems applied to Finance
6. Imaging problems

Taylor 205
503-883-2654

jfirkins@linfield.edu
https://catfiles.linfield.edu/People/Faculty/jfirkins/public/

Education: PhD University of Oregon MS University of Maryland, Baltimore County BS university of Redlands

Academic Interests: Dr. Nordstrom's research interests are in the areas of algebra and combinatorics. She received her Ph. D. in ring theory from the University of Oregon. Dr. Nordstrom primarily teaches Abstract Algebra, Linear Algebra, Number Theory, and Numerical Analysis but maintains an interest in a wide variety of mathematical fields such as game theory and discrete mathematics. She is currently involved in research with undergraduates in the area of combinatorial game theory.

Publications:

"Battles of Wits and Matters of Trust: Game Theory in Popular Culture." Mathematics and Popular Culture: Essays on Appearances in Film, Literature, Gaming, Television and Other Media, eds, E. Sklar and J. Sklar, McFarland, 2012. "Clique-relaxed graph coloring," C. Dunn, J. Nordstrom, C. Naymie, E. Pitney, W. Sehorn, C. Suer, Involve, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2011. "Generalized Quivers for Locally Unipotent Rings," Communications in Algebra, 2006 Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 567-583. "Locally Artinian Serial Rings," Communications in Algebra, 2004, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 1255-1264.

Favorite Quote

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?" Stephen Wright.

Taylor 213
503-883-2428

billr@linfield.edu

Education: 1983, Associate Professor of Mathematics. BA, MA University of Oregon; MS, PhD Georgia Institute of Technology

Academic Interests: Dr. Raddatz's main areas of interest are geometry and numerical analysis. He has primary responsibility for the departmental offerings in these areas. He has taught most of the courses in the department as well as some computer science courses.