Paolo Aluffi, Brennan Professor of Mathematics
After an extensive selection process, the first holder of the Marion Bradley Brennan Professorship in Mathematics has been chosen. The committee has combed through a list filled with many deserving candidates and chosen Professor Paolo Aluffi, who has served as a faculty member since 1991. Aluffi was chosen on the merits of his work as both a teacher and a researcher, and comes highly recommended by his colleagues and students.
Faculty Research: Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
Among questions of interest to biologists who study animal behavior are these: When should an animal - for example, a fiddler crab - intervene to help a neighbor having a territorial dispute with an intruder? Does eavesdropping - for example, by green swordtail fish - increase or reduce the overall frequency of aggressive behavior in a population? How widespread in nature is mutual assessment of fighting abilities? To be sure, humans do it, but what about hermit crabs or sea anenomes? And if strength is indeed being assessed, when does it pay for a threat to be a bluff?
Faculty Profile: Harsh Jain
When new faculty member Dr. Harsh Jain was attending high school in India, he had no idea he would go on to flourish in an exciting career in biomathematics. Dr. Jain describes his career choice as a "happy accident"-during high school he showed a strong dislike for mathematics but didn't know what other major to declare in college. Advised that with a mathematics degree he could pursue anything he chose, he passed his qualifiers for pure math and then stumbled into biomathematics, thinking, "Who had ever heard of biomath?"