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Sciences

BIOLOGY

Lin Aanonsen

Neurobiology/Pain Research

Aanonsen is a neuroscientist trained in neuropharmacology. Her research focuses on understanding the causes of chronic pain. She is investigating neurochemicals involved in processing sensory information in the spinal cord. Specifically, she is studying whether a naturally occurring substance in the body similar to THC or Cannabinoid can help control pain. She also directs the college's Neuroscience Program and is director of the Health Professions Advisory Committee.

Mary Montgomery

Animal Developmental Biology

Montgomery's research focuses on the mechanisms of development in multicellular animals. She teaches courses in developmental biology, cellular and molecular biology and the evolution of the development process.

Paul Overvoorde

Plant Biology

Overvoorde is a plant molecular biologist. His current research focuses on increasing our understanding of how the plant hormone, auxin, is recognized by plant cells and how the process affects plant growth and development. He teaches courses in cell biology, plant biology and physiology as well as genetics.

Kathleen Parson

Biochemistry/Genetics/Undergraduate Education

Parson is a biochemist and molecular geneticist who also teaches in the Chemistry Department. She is a consultant to the Biosciences Laboratories at 3M and has co-authored a publication on a chromatographic support for high pressure liquid chromatography. In addition, she has worked for Project Kaleidoscope in Washington, D.C., on projects to help improve undergraduate science education. She has also conducted research at the University of Glasgow, where she investigated gene expression.

Aldemaro Romero

Conservation Biology/Environment in Latin America/Marine Biology

Romero specializes in evolutionary and conservation biology, with a focus on conservation and other environmental issues in Latin America. He is also an expert in marine biology, particularly marine mammals and has studied whale populations in the Caribbean and Baja Peninsula. Romero directs the college's environmental studies program.

Janet Serie

Immune System/Physiology/Diabetes Research

Serie serves as the college's dean of natural sciences and mathematics. She is an immunologist with expertise in physiology, cell biology and neuroscience. She researches how environment affects the body's immune system and is studying the immune response to viral infections. She is also known for her internationally recognized research on how to prevent organ rejection in diabetics. Serie has received local and national awards for teaching and for curricular innovations. For example, she was named the 1999 Minnesota College Science Teacher of the Year. Serie is the program director for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Macalester, which includes a summer program for first-year students of color interested in the sciences.

James Straka

Biochemistry/Environmental Toxins

Straka specializes in environmental toxicology. His work deals with the use of enzyme activity levels to measure the level of toxins in the environment. He and Provost Dan Hornbach are working on a conservation project that entails the genetic analysis of endangered species of fresh water mussels on the Upper St. Croix River using DNA fingerprinting technology.

Steven Sundby

Molecular Biology

With specialties in molecular biology, protein biochemistry and virology, Sundby teaches the laboratory classes for cell biology and genetics courses, and microbiology.

Peter Vaughan

AIDS Prevention in Developing Nations

Vaughan is an ecologist with research interests in AIDS- prevention strategies in developing countries that use radio and television programming as education sources. He teaches courses in ecology, aquatic ecology and evolution.

Timothy Watkins

Animal Physiology

Watkins is a comparative animal physiologist who researches the evolution of survival behaviors. He works with students investigating the evolution of movement in prey species such as frogs.

CHEMISTRY

Ronald Brisbois

Synthetic Chemistry/Outreach Programs

Brisbois is a synthetic chemist. His research interests include leveraging the power of synthetic methodology for the synthesis and design of organic natural products and theoretically interesting unnatural products. He has worked with the 3M Company Biomaterials Technology Center investigating the synthesis and photophysical properties of novel, highly fluorescent compounds which are incorporated into systems for DNA analysis. In addition, Brisbois has developed elementary and high school science outreach programs for students and their parents.

Janet L. Carlson

Organic Chemistry

Carlson is an organic chemist interested in structure-activity relationships, computer modeling and organic synthesis. She has recently conducted cyanobacterin research. She also teaches in the college's Comparative North American Studies Program.

Paul Fischer

Inorganic Chemistry

Fishcher specializes in inorganic chemistry, particularly the special laboratory techniques required to handle and manipulate air and moisture sennsitive substances. He is currently researching organometallic synthetic chemistry.

Rebecca Hoye

Organic Chemistry/Lung Cancer

Hoye is an organic chemist with interests in strained ring chemistry and natural product synthesis. She is currently investigating the synthesis of elenic acid, a marine natural product, that could help fight lung cancer. She is also researching new synthetic methodology, stereochemistry and organic reaction mechanisms.

Keith Kuwata

Atmospheric Chemistry/Physical and Analytical Chemistry

Kuwata's research uses computational chemistry to unravel the mechanisms of reactions in the atmosphere, with a particular interest in studying the role of ozone in the production of OH radicals. He is a physical and analytical chemist with a background in laser spectroscopy and atmospheric chemistry. His current research involves the use of quantum mechanics to elucidate the mechanisms of reactions in the atmosphere.

A. Truman Schwartz

Science Education and Literacy

Schwartz is a physical chemist and internationally known educator. He is the author and editor of the first two editions of Chemistry In Context, an innovative textbook for non-science majors which uses socially significant issues to introduce chemical concepts. Schwartz has also spearheaded a national movement to improve literacy in the sciences. He is an editor for the teaching modules of the ChemLinks Coalition and Modular Chemistry Consortium.

Thomas Varberg

Physical Chemistry

Varberg is a physical chemist. He researches and has written about the electronic spectra of metal hydrides in the gas phase. He has also been a postdoctoral associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and a NATO fellow at Oxford University. Varberg received the national Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award for 1998 honoring excellence in mentorship, research and teaching of undergraduate students.

Wayne Wolsey

General Chemistry/Kidney Stone Chemistry/

Nuclear Energy

An inorganic chemist, Wolsey has served as a faculty participant in the Oak Ridge Science Semester at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee where he helped develop field methods for measuring heavy metals in the soil. His current research includes the study of calcium oxalate kidney stone chemistry. Wolsey is the co-author of the widely used chemistry lab manual Chemical Principles in the Laboratory. He has also written articles about nuclear power and storing nuclear waste for several Minnesota newspapers.

GEOLOGY

John P. Craddock

Earthquakes/Tectonics

Craddock is a structural geologist. His research interests include the mechanics of mountain belt formation, rock strain analysis, the Keweenawan rift, mafic dike intrusions and Antarctic geology.

Raymond Rogers

Dinosaurs/Sedimentation

Rogers specializes in taphonomy, the study of how biological remains become fossils. His research also focuses on foreland basin sedimentation and stratification. Rogers is often a member of multinational research teams studying dinosaur fossils in Zimbabwe, Montana, Argentina and Madagascar. He has received a grant from the National Geographic Society to study early dinosaur evolution in Zimbabwe.

Karl Wirth

Volcanoes

Wirth is an igneous petrologist. His interests include ophiolite studies in Alaska, lava flow suites in the Philippine Islands, mafic dikes in northern and southwestern Minnesota and Antarctic meteorites.

MATHEMATICS/COMPUTER SCIENCE

David Bressoud

Analytic Number Theory/Math Education/History

Bressoud is considered an international authority in the area of analytic number theory. He is the co-author of A Course in Computational Number Theory, which is an introduction to number theory that uses the computer for motivation and explanation. He is also the author of Proofs and Confirmations: The Story of the Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture, which combines his interests in combinatorics and the history of mathematics. Other books include A Radical Approach to Real Analysis. In addition, he is widely recognized for his work in improving secondary and undergraduate mathematics education. He helped organize a Mathematical Association of America Curriculum Foundations Workshop. Much of Bressoud's work involves putting math into a historical context. He is also interested in intellectual property rights and issues of science and religion.

Janet Folina

Mathematics and Logic

Philosophy Department

Folina specializes in logic and the philosophy of mathematics. She also is interested in Ludwig Wittgenstein and other 20th century philosophers as well as contemporary analytical philosophy. She is the author of Poincare and the Philosophy of Mathematics (see Mathematics). She is currently researching Weyl's philosophy of mathematics and the concept of proof in mathematics.

Susan Fox

Artificial Intelligence/Robotics/Cognitive Science

Fox specializes in artificial intelligence, particularly the use of "introspective reasoning" for self-improving systems. She is creating a system which can reason about its own reasoning processes and alter them when it detects a flaw or failure in its reasoning. She received a grant from the National Science Foundation to help her develop a robotics lab to support teaching and learning about artificial intelligence in a real-world environment.

Tom Halvorson

Algebra

Halvorson specializes in algebra, combinatorics and discrete mathematics. He teaches courses in mathematics and computer science.

Joan Hutchinson

Graph Theory/Women in Math

Hutchinson is an established research mathematician, author and classroom teacher. Her work focuses on graph theory, combinatorics and related algorithms. She has written a book on discrete mathematics and numerous articles on graph theory and other subjects. She is the recipient of a National Security Agency grant to support her work which has significance in the fields of graphing and mapmaking. In addition, she encourages women to consider careers in mathematics and is in much demand as a speaker around the country.

Daniel Kaplan

Biomedical Applications/Chaos/Fractals

Kaplan is an expert in the application of nonlinear dynamics to biomedical problems. His work deals with chaos and fractals, focusing on biological and medical applications such as determining whether irregular heart rhythms are random or chaotic. He teaches courses in applied mathematics, statistics and computer science. He is the author of Understanding Nonlinear Dynamics.

Weiwen Miao

Statistics/Legal Issues

Miao leads the department's statistics program. She has published several articles, the most recent of which deals with the use of statistical evidence in legal decisions. She has also worked as a statistical consultant for Eli Lilly.

Richard K. Molnar

Math and Computer Science

Molnar's research and teaching interests are in algebra and combinatorics in math as well as in programming languages, artificial intelligence and theory in computer science.

Daniel O'Loughlin

Geometry

O'Loughlin specializes in geometric curvature flows. He helped write the book The Instructor's Guide for Stewart's Multivariable Calculus.

Wayne Roberts

Teaching Reform

Roberts specializes in calculus and algebra reform as well as in the use of math in everyday life. He has been the national chairman of the Calculus Reform and First Two Years Committee of the Mathematical Association of America. He was also director of the project that produced the Resources in Calculus series. Roberts is the editor of Calculus, the Dynamics of Change (An Overview of the Last Ten Years of Calculus Reform). In addition, he is the founder and director of the Minnesota State High School Mathematics League and is the author of several other books on a variety of subjects including convex functions and what every well-educated person should know about mathematics.

Karen Saxe

Analysis

Saxe's research interests include functional and real analysis. She has also served on the editorial board of the College Mathematics Journal.

Michael Schneider

Computer Literacy/Skills/Computer Networks

Schneider is nationally active in computer education and can discuss issues such as computer literacy. He is also a widely known author of computer science textbooks and has been invited as a computer consultant to Kenya, Australia and Israel. His newest book is Invitation to Computer Science. His research interests are in parallel processing and computer networks. Schneider received a Fulbright grant to lecture and conduct research in Mauritius.

Elizabeth Shoop

Scientific Databases

Shoop specializes in bioinformatics, the dabatbase management and warehousing of large scientific databases. She has worked on large computational biology projects such as helping to coordinate research on data from the human geonome project.

Stan Wagon

General Math

Wagon is known for his eclectic mathematical interests. He researches how computers can be used to help see and understand mathematical objects that are difficult to visualize such as differential equations. He recently received national media attention for his invention of a square-wheeled bicycle. He has written several books including Solutions to Differential Equations, A Course in Computational Number Theory, co-written with David Bressoud, Mathematica in Action and Which Way Did the Bicycle Go? based on 25 years of Macalester's "Problem of the Week."

PHYSICS/ASTRONOMY

James Doyle

Condensed Matter Physics

Doyle is an experimentalist in plasma and materials physics. His research interests include thin film materials science and plasma physics and electrodeposition of semiconductors. , fundamental processes in the plasma deposition of thin films. Doyle recently received a National Science Foundation grant for a three-year study of the effects of energetic particle bombardment on the sputter growth and properities of conducting zinc oxide thin films.

James Heyman

Semiconductor Physics

Heyman's research focuses on experimental condensed matter and semiconductor physics. He has established a laboratory on campus to study optical properties of quantum wells and nanostructures, which as so small that their electronic and optical properties have to be described in quantum mechanics. He has also started a research program on ultrafast processes in semiconductors.

Sung Kyu Kim

Big Bang Cosmology/General Physics

Kim recently completed a textbook on the physics of the big bang in collaboration with a cosmologist from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Physics: The Fabric of Reality and co-author of Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers. He also teaches physics courses for non-science students and directs the Macalester Summer Physics Institute for pre-med students.

Nat Longley

General Physics/Radiation

Longley is interested in semiconductor physics and computers, radiation and medical imaging, particle physics and cosmology. He is working on a project that incorporates a particle beam that stretches from Fermilab near Chicago to the Soudan Laboratory in northern Minnesota. The project could have implications on the effect on the long-standing astrophysical problem of missing mass. Longley was a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Raymond Mikkelson

Optical Fibers

Mikkelson studies designs for special-purpose optical fibers and their applications in fiber optic sensors. He co-invented two optical fiber patents with colleagues at the 3M Corporation Fiber Optics Lab, where he is a consultant.

Kim Venn

Astrophysics

Venn, a Clare Boothe Luce assistant professor, works at the forefront of experimental astronomy. She was awarded a 2000 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists.

She is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development grant. Her research focuses on using spectroscopy to determine the nature of evolved stars and chemically peculiar stars. Venn has conducted her work out of many of the world's well-known observation sites including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Caltech Keck Telescope in Hawaii and the Cerro Tololo International Observatories in Chile.