Volume 7 | Ninth Issue | Summer 2007 | Archived Issues
From the Keyboard
Summer Vacation
What did you do on your summer vacation? Our Math and Computer Science students were doing significantly more than "going downtown to look for a job ... and hanging out in front of the drug store." From as disparate locations as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, San Francisco, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Marlborough, MA, James Madison University, and the Wheaton campus, our students worked in industry-intensive internships and as researchers in NSF's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs). We highlight some of those students in this issue and share their insights on the world of work and research.
Also in this issue, we welcome our newest faculty member, Rachelle DeCoste and fill you in on "the news" including our newest Kollett Award winner. And of course, we share the recent successes in faculty scholarship.
Thank you for your responses to our previous issue. We hope you like our new look. Send us an email ... we love hearing from you. Enjoy v7 of The Integral!
Our Alumnae/i
When Ken Babby '02 left Wheaton, we knew he was going places. Desiring a match with his interdisciplinary interests in business and computing, Ken crafted his own major in Economics and Computer Science. 
Turning some heads during his summer internships at the Washington Post while an undergraduate, Ken accepted a full-time position in the Post's IT Department after graduation. He continues his successful ways, recently being named the new Director of the Post's National Advertising Unit.
With his initial two years of IT under his belt, Ken joined the Post's Marketing Department as a Marketing Analyst for NAU (National Advertising Unit) in August of 2004. In the summer of 2005, Ken joined the NAU Technology sales team handling local technology and national telecommunications clients (AT&T and Cingular Wireless). As mentioned in his recent promotion announcement, "Ken drove tremendous growth of over 60% in print and 1004% online. In fact, his work with AT&T resulted in an incremental sale of $2.9 million, for which Ken earned a Publisher s Award." In addition to his work at the Post, Ken is about to finish his MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.
Although we knew Ken was going places, he hasn't forgotten Wheaton. On the contrary, Ken and his wife Jill Barents '02 are members of the President's Commission at Wheaton and remain very devoted and connected to the college. Kudos to Ken! As professors, these are the alumnae/i stories that make us want to come to work in the morning.
News Bytes
Student Internships and Research Experiences
We caught up with a few of our students and asked them to comment on their summer experiences.
Rachel Bayless '08 -- REU at James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA)
I worked under the guidance of Professor Brian Walton in Mathematical Biology. There is a molecule (a protein, actually) that binds to a substrate and can resist significant forces. At a random time, the protein releases from its substrate. 
The characteristics of this random time depends on how strong the applied force is as well as to the history of previous forces. The experiments involved attaching a small glass bead to the protein, pulling the bead with a laser, and recording the times. We worked on developing a meaningful mathematical model (probabilistic) for this experimental system and appropriate algorithms to analyze data resulting from our experiments. I had to do a lot of programming this summer in the languages C++, MatLab, and R. For example, I learned the algorithms involved in hidden Markov model analyses and used them to identify binding events between actin and myosin. It was all hard. I had to do a lot of research on my own to catch up. I worked everyday (including weekends) and even sometimes would stay up all night in the lab trying to get my programs to work. It is nice to know the end result really was a product of my hard work.
Victoria Bennett '08 -- Network Centric Systems Intern, Raytheon (Marlborough, MA)
I had a wonderful time again at Raytheon. I found it very enjoyable, satisfying, busy, and even fun. I got to use all my skills in my work on a Raytheon Six Sigma project to streamline reporting and information control. I spent the majority of my time building a database. The database was the major organizational tool of the project and also handled some financial management. After finishing the database, I wrote a manual to accompany it. The manual was for my manager to be able to distribute the database to others. I also created a logo. The entire experience was an amazing opportunity.
Dale Bowring '07 -- REU at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Perhaps the thing that surprised me most about this REU was the extensive number of open-ended questions there are in mathematics. This is quite apparent by simply looking at the two-variable interlace polynomial in Graph Theory. The summer definitely was an amazing experience. It helped give me a feel of what research is all about, as well as the realization that not all of it is trivial. A lot of the research was independent with minimal guidance from our mentors. This gave our group a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the program, knowing that the work we did was truly ours.
Trisha Carr '08 -- REU at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
I explored evolutionary game theory, social network theory and their interconnections. Working as a team with five other undergraduates from across the country, I explored up to four background areas important to the understanding of evolutionary theory: conventional game theory (especially non-cooperative discrete games), Markov chains, graph theory, and dynamical systems theory. With an exposure to these topics in place, I moved into the theory of evolutionary games and social networks. I studied some of the main results that have been found concerning how actors adapt to the playing of a game and how institutions or norms arise. I am particularly interested in studying recent developments in the application of evolutionary game theory to economics.
Hilary Emerson '10 -- Summer Research Intern, Wheaton College (Norton, MA)
My experience researching collaboratively with fellow student Jonathan Durkee '10 and Professor of Mathematics Tommy Ratliff was incredibly rewarding. The opportunity to research a topic that has not been studied in depth by a great number of academics is quite an experience. We researched various ways of finding the stable point, or "core", in spatial models of voting." I learned a great deal about the Finesse Point, and was able to observe the connections and differences between various methods of finding such a "core." I became particularly interested in what we call "supermajority regions" within a Win Set (a trefoil leaf region which is preferred by the majority over an opponent). "Supermajority regions," in turn, occur when it is necessary to move farther than expected to win a particular vote, due to the overlap of certain candidates' positions (both politically and graphically).
Karen Grieb '09 -- Web Development Intern, Embark (San Francisco, CA)
My internship was with a small start-up company named Embark. They used to be part of the Princeton Review, but have recently broken off to become their own separate company. I worked on online college and graduate applications, specifically with updates to applications and application websites using HTML, CSS, Javascript, and SQL. This included talking to clients to understand requirements and contributing to internal projects to create developer tools.
Amy Hopkinson '09 -- Laboratory Technician, GeoTesting Express (Boxboro, MA)
I worked with clay in a geotechnical laboratory, finding the plastic and liquid limits of various samples of clay and silt. In other words, I tested clay to see how much water it retains and how well it holds itself together. It is quite interesting to see how different samples of soil will turn out and I learned how hard it is to predict the outcome of an experiment.
Dr. Rachelle C. DeCoste Joins Math/CS Faculty
Rachelle DeCoste is the newest member of our growing faculty in Mathematics and Computer Science. Rachelle grew up in Abington and went to high school at Notre Dame Academy in Hingham, MA. After finishing her BA in Math (with a minor in Astronomy) at Connecticut College, she went on to complete her MS and PhD in Math from UNC, Chapel Hill. Before arriving at Wheaton in the summer of 2007, Rachelle spent three years as an Assistant Professor at the US Military Academy at West Point where she taught and pursued her research with the US Army Soldier Research Center (SRC) in Natick, MA. With colleague Louis Piscitelle, Rachelle considered differential equations arising in the work of scientists at the SRC. "We used symmetry methods to try to understand the behavior of the solutions of the systems. One particular system we studied was one developed by food scientists there to predict bacteria growth - particularly interesting to the Army because it helps them determine reasonable shelf-life for foods such as prepackaged sandwiches." You can see more of Rachelle's recent publications by visiting her faculty profile. Welcome Rachelle!
2007 Fred Kollett Prize in Mathematics and Computer Science
Chris Stuetzle '07, a math and computer science double major, is this year's recipient of our annual award. Chris excelled in both disciplines, as evidenced by his high grades in all of his courses. 
He had the highest score in the Computer Graphics course, which is one of the most difficult in the Department, and which highlights a student's strength in combining programming skill with mathematical knowledge. Chris is also very interested in physics. This is borne out by the fact that he completed an Honor's Thesis with Mike Gousie as adviser in computer science and John Collins as adviser in physics. Chris wrote a computer program that simulates light entering a particular
kind of crystal. The program then produces a visualization of the effects of the energy transfer between ions. In addition to his scholarly achievements, Chris could be found in multiple venues around campus. He worked as a teaching assistant/tutor, and has done this work in diverse math courses such as Calc 1, Calc 2, Multi-variable Calculus, and the computer science course Web Programming, Graphics and Design. He was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society last year and was selected to introduce new inductees this year. He was also one of two student members of the Committee on Admissions and Academic Standing, chosen based on their academic achievements and knowledge of the Wheaton community. Besides all of this, Chris also played in the Wheaton Jazz Band where he could be heard playing one mean rendition of Javon Jackson's "Kay Pea." Chris will attend RPI starting in the Fall of 2007 to work towards his Ph.D. in Computer Science. In the best spirit of Fred Kollett, kudos to Chris Stuetzle.
Faculty Highlights
Check out some new faculty publications and scholarship ...Bill Goldbloom-Bloch
Professor of Mathematics
bbloch@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publication
Goldbloom-Bloch, B. (2007). Fractal Boundaries are Not Typical. Topology and its Applications. 154, 533-539.
Mike Gousie
Associate Professor of Computer Science
mgousie@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publication
Gousie, M. and Milewski, S. '07 (2007). A System for 3D Error Visualization and Assessment of Digital Elevation Models. In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS '07) (Barcelona, 2007). (more)
Michael Kahn
Professor of Mathematics and Director of Quantitative Analysis
mkahn@wheatoncollege.edu |
website
Publication
Dyer, B.D., Kahn, M., and LeBlanc, M.D. (2007). CART (Classification and Regression Trees) analysis of genomic signatures reveals sets of tetramers that 
discriminate temperature optima of Archaea and Bacteria. Archaea, v2(3), 159-167. (more)
Mark LeBlanc
Professor of Computer Science
mleblanc@wheatoncollege.edu | website
Publications
LeBlanc, M.D. and Dyer, B.D. (2007). Perl for Exploring DNA. Oxford University Press.
Dyer, B.D., Kahn, M., and LeBlanc, M.D. (2007). CART (Classification and Regression Trees) analysis of genomic signatures reveals sets of tetramers that discriminate temperature optima of Archaea and Bacteria. Archaea, v2(3), 159-167.(more)
The Integral
Integral v7 - Summer 2007
Archived Issues | Computer Science | Mathematics
Wheaton College
26 East Main Street
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