Rick Elderkin's Home Page 

Besides a very rich and fulfilling family life, the things I find most satisfying are

• teaching in the mathematics department of Pomona College
• biking  around Southern California with friends.

Like some fine foods, mathematics is an acquired taste. But once you're hooked it's great! Here are links which provide some insight into the world of mathematics. 

• Our NSF-supported Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).
• Research opportunities for undergraduates in math.
• Careers in math.
• The Society for Mathematical Biology.
• The Math Archives.

I'm already hooked. Here are some things that I'm involved in:

Teaching: 

• ID1, "Perspectives in Environmental Thinking"
• Math 32, "Calculus III".
• Math 60, "Linear Algebra".
• Math102, "Differential Equations and Modeling"
• Math181, "Dynamical Systems"
• Math183,  "Mathematical Modeling" .

Directing student research.  Recent papers and activities include

• Benjamin Coppersmith (Pomona College Mathematics Senior Thesis, '10), Predation with Switching for Energy Efficiency.

• Yavor Kostov (Pomona College Mathematics Senior Thesis, '10) , Bifurcation in Delay-Differential Equations with Two Delays.

• Paige Maas (Pomona College Mathematics Senior Thesis, '09),  A Model of Coral Dynamics.

• Louis Russell  (Pomona College Environmental Analysis Senior Thesis, 09), Solar-Thermal Energy at Pomona College.

• Michael Baumstein (Pomona College Mathematics Senior Thesis, '09), Modeling Colony Collapse Disorder.

• Emi Oakamoto (Pomona College Mathematics Senior Thesis, '08), Modeling the Spread of Tuberculosis in a Population.

• Brittany Biebl (Pomona College Environmental Analysis Senior Thesis, ’07), Need and cost-benefit analyses of solar hot-water heating for Haldeman Pool.

• Will Leer (Pomona College Mathematics, 2007)  Optimal strategy for medium distance running events..

• “Modeling Indirect Competition Between Two Predators with a Shared Resource,” with student Robert Gerrity, a poster at conference on Natural Resource Modeling, Humboldt State University, June 14-17, 2005.  Won “Best Student Poster”

• NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates, Claremont Mathematics Project, Director of the Dynamical Systems group, summer 2005.

• William Jeck, (Pomona College ’05); Lagrangian Data Assimilation in Geophysical Flows and an Assessment of Data Gathering Strategies for Submerged Ocean Drifters

• Warren Davidson, (Pomona College ’05);  Predator Prey Growth Model with a Genetic Variant

• Nick Hawkins (Pomona College '04); "Modeling Nesting Strategies in Populations of Magellanic Penguins"

• Ryan Hernandez (Pitzer College ’03); "Controlling Diabetes"

• Samuel Schlessinger (Pomona College ’03); "The Flow Analysis of Highway Traffic"

• Kim Knapp (Pomona College ’03); "A Mathematical Model of a Juvenile Justice System", (second reader for honors)

• Jeff Fesenmaier (Pomona College ’02); “A Model for Pricing Financial Derivatives with Applications for European Options”
• Dan Morgan (Pomona College, '02); “Constructing Three Dimensional Topographic Models from Limited Data Sets Using Bessel Functions”

And....

• A Hughes Workshop to enable computer modeling in ecology with Stella software.
• "Atlast," a curricular project to develop materials for computing in linear algebra courses.
• Maple worksheet repository, Differential equations worksheets for experimentation using Maple V.
• A text manuscript for a junior level mathematical modeling course (linear algebra and d.e. prereq's), Mathematical Modeling for Environmental Analysis.
• Research in mathematical population biology. A paper of special personal satisfaction "Predator-prey interactions with delays due to juvenile maturation", with K. L. Cooke  and W. Huang, SIAM J. Appl. Math., 66, #3, (lead author).