Research Connections

Dr. Abra Brisbin is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Carleton College and served as a teaching assistant at the Carleton Summer Math Program in 2004 and then went on to complete a Ph.D. in applied math from Cornell University, focusing on applications of statistics to genetics.  She did a postdoctoral fellowship in statistical genetics at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN before joining the faculty at UW-Eau Claire in 2012.  Her research at UW-Eau Claire has included statistical genetics, the scholarship of teaching and learning of statistics, and statistics and machine learning applied to a variety of topics suggested by her undergraduate research student collaborators.  Her publication list includes two papers with undergraduate co-authors.  In addition to teaching courses on statistics, calculus, and math modeling, she has also co-developed courses on Programming for Data Science and on Data Mining and Machine Learning for the UW-Eau Claire Master's of Data Science program, and developed a course on Data Structures and Algorithms in Bioinformatics for an undergraduate major in Bioinformatics, which she helped create.  Since becoming department chair in 2022, she has been applying her penchant for data analysis to facilitate the smooth running of the department, including using linear programming in Python to optimize course schedules.

Dr. Karen Lange is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Wellesley College. She attended the Carleton Summer Math Program in 1999 before completing her undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College, her doctoral degree at the University of Chicago, and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame.  Lange is a mathematician  who works in computability theory, a branch of mathematical logic that studies theoretical models of computation. Lange's research has encompassed understanding various "balance scales" that calibrate computational information  and applying these tools to measure the difficulty of problems throughout mathematics.    Throughout her career, she has been particularly interested in the  complexity  of  algebraic and model-theoretic problems.  She is passionate about supporting students on their mathematical journeys, both in the classroom and out, and partners with students and colleagues to make mathematics more inclusive and accessible.  As part of these efforts, Lange is a current MAA/AWM Section Lecturer and has collaborated with or advised students on multiple articles for the MAA's undergraduate journal Math Horizons.  These articles are usually in connection with  her  undergraduate capstone writing seminar, Explaining Mathematics, which is  part of the Calderwood Seminars Program in Public Writing.

Dr. Erin McNicholas is a full professor of mathematics at Willamette University.  She attended the Carleton Summer Math Program in 1995, its first year.  Before receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2006, she worked for the State of Oregon as a Metrologist and for the cryptography group at Sandia National Laboratory.  She enjoys exploring problems through an algebraic lens and her publications include research articles and book chapters on algebraic voting theory, dynamical algebraic combinatorics, graph theory, and matroids.  She has received teaching awards from Willamette University and the University of Arizona.  She develops courses and materials that highlight the contributions of underrepresented communities and integrate multiple mathematical perspectives.  As part of this work she co-authored the textbook Explorations in Number Theory: Commuti

Chapter 1: On Partially Ordered Sets and the 1/3-2/3 Conjecture.- Chapter 2: Group Actions and Riemann Surfaces.- Chapter 3: Challenges in Using Data for Public Policy Decisions.- Chapter 4: A Taste of Discretized Differential Geometry: Communicating Mathematics With Conceptual Metaphor.- Chapter 5: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.- Chapter 6: My Journey In Geometry.- Chapter 7: Continued Fractions Connecting Number Theory, Dynamical Systems, And Hyperbolic Geometry.- Chapter 8: Stochastic Models in Biology.- Chapter 9: Finding Your Path.