Education
BS with double major Mathematics and Statistics; MS in Mathematics with a minor in Statistics; Ph.D. In Mathematical Sciences
Biography
I have always been interested in puzzles and games. I remember when I was seven, my grandfather gave me the following problem: "put three houses and three wells on a piece of paper. Mathematics just gave me a systematic way of analyzing such puzzles and games. I grew up in Knoxville and my family is still in Knoxville. When I started job searching in the last year of my doctorate program, I was especially interested in places that were close enough to Knoxville to travel home on a regular basis.
I enjoy Pickleball, Elliptical, and Weight Training. I have an extensive collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels that includes all of the Hugo and Nebula winners. I also enjoy making puzzles similar to those of the MacMahon type (see macmahon-revenge.pdf) and cubic dissections (see cubic.pdf).
Typical Course Load:
- Calculus 2
- Applied Combinatorics and Problem Solving
- Introduction to Modern Algebra 1
- Introduction to Graph Theory
Research Interests & Publications
Interests: Enumerative Combinatorics and Graph Theory; Combinatorial Games on Graphs; Peg solitaire on graphs, and pebbling/rubbling
- "Automorphic Decompositions of Graphs" (with R.E.Jamison) published in Graphs and Combinatorics (2011).
- "Peg Solitaire on Graphs" (with D.P. Hoilman) published in Discrete Mathematics (2011).
- How to Count (textbook) published by Springer (2015).
- "Domination Cover Rubbling" (with T.W. Haynes and R.L. Keaton) published in Discrete Applied Mathematics (2019).