Curriculum Vitae

 

Richard H. Elderkin

Department of Mathematics

Pomona College

Claremont, CA  91711

 

(909) 621-8409

relderkin@pomona.edu

http://pages.pomona.edu/~relderkin

 

Education

Whitman College (Phi Beta Kappa)                 B.A. (cum laude)                         1967

University of Colorado (Boulder)                    M.A., Mathematics                      1968

University of Colorado (Boulder)                    Ph.D., Mathematics                     1971

     (N.D.E.A. Fellow, 1967-1970)

 

Fields of Specialization and Interest

Differential Equations, Mathematical Modeling (especially environmental)

 

Teaching Positions

Pomona College                                               Professor                                      1988-

                                                                          Associate Professor                     1980-1988

                                                                          Assistant Professor                      1974-1980

Claremont Graduate University                       Member, Extended

                                                                          Graduate Faculty                         1974-2003

State University of New York at Albany        Assistant Professor                      1972-1973

University of Colorado at Boulder                  Visiting Lecturer                         1972, summer

 

Research Fellowships and Appointments

 

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

Mellon Foundation grant for Math Modeling in Calculus II, with Prof. Ami Radunskaya, to use mathematical modeling software (Stella) to improve the motivation and development of intuition in calculus.                                                                           1997-1998.

Mellon Foundation grant as principal investigator with co-investigators John Molinder (Engineering, HMC) and Bob Borrelli and Courtney Coleman (Math, HMC).  Pomona College student Larry Wong and I developed Maple (software) worksheets for Math 102 (Differential Equations and Modeling) and to archive on the Web (http://www.math.hmc.edu/mellon-de/mellon-de.html).                             1995-1996

Cornell University                                                                                                 1991-1992

         Visiting Scientist


Howard Hughes Medical Program                                                                       1990, summer

         Undergraduate Research Grant                                                                  

         High School Teacher Fellowship Co-Investigator                                      

Sloan New Liberal Arts Appropriate Technology Program Curricular Grant      1989, summer

         Mathematical modeling of shape-memory alloys

Claremont Colleges Mellon Curricular Grant                                                       1986, summer

         Discrete mathematical modeling of sudden infant death syndrome

University of Minnesota, Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications           1985-1986

         Senior Fellow

NSF Research Opportunity Award                                                                      1985

         University of Minnesota

Sloan New Liberal Arts Fellowship                                                                      1985, May

         Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Oxford University Mathematics Institute                                                            1979-1980

         (NSF Science Faculty Professional Development Grant)

NSF Summer Research Grants                                                                             1976-1980

         Co-investigator

NSF Undergraduate Research Participation Grant                                              1976

         Project Director

Brown University                                                                                                 1973-1974

         Research Assistant Professor

State University of New York at Albany                                                             1973

         Assistant Professor

 

Professional Societies

American Mathematical Society

Mathematical Association of America

Resource Modeling Association

 

Research in Progress

Mathematical Modeling for Environmental Analysis (book ms.)

Modeling grain-legume-pest interactions.

 

Publications

“Predator-prey interactions with delays due to juvenile maturation,” coauthored with K.L. Cooke, W. Huang, SIAM Applied Mathematics, 66, #3, 2006. (lead author)

 

"Algorithms," in The Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Society. 1998

 

"Populations structured by vector-borne disease", in Differential Equations and Applications to Biology and Industry,  M. Martelli, K. Cooke, E. Cumberbatch, B. Tang, and H. Thieme, eds., World Scientific Pub., Singapore, 1996.

 

"Pitch, Yaw and Roll," with David Boyd, in ATLAST, Computer Exercises for Linear Algebra, S. Leon, E. Herman, and R. Faulkerberry, eds., Prentice Hall, 1996.

 

"Orthogonal Projections for Approximating Discretely Sampled Functions by Discrete Special Functions," with Tom Cairns, in ATLAST, Computer Exercises for Linear Algebra, S. Leon, E. Herman, and R. Faulkerberry, eds., Prentice Hall, 1996.

 

"Structured Populations with Nonlinear, Nonlocally Dependent Dynamics: Basic Theory," Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 192, 392-412 (1995).

 

"Dynamics of prevalence of disease in populations structured by disease density," in Mathematical Population Dynamics: Analysis of Heterogeneity, Volume One: Theory of Epidemics, O. Arino, D Axelrod, M. Kimmel and M. Langlais, eds., Wuerz Pub. Ltd, Winnipeg, 1995

 

"Lessons from Cognitive theory for teaching mathematical modeling to freshmen", Humanistic Mathematics Network Newsletter, Dec. 1989

 

"Harvesting procedures with management policy in iterative density-dependent population models," (with M. Witten, K.L. Cooke), J. Natural Resources Modeling, Vol. 2, No. 3(1988), 383-420.

 

"Contour interpolation of random data," as adviser to Chris Jacobs, John Keltner, and Brian Vant-Hull, Mathematical Modelling, 7(1986), 577-583, and in the UMAP Journal, 7(1986), 289-296.

 

"Nonlinear, globally age-dependent population models: some basic theory," J. Math. Analy. & Appl., Vol. 108(1985), 546-562.

 

"Population models with globally age-dependent dynamics: on computing the steady state," in Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations, Vol. 1, M. Witten (ed.), Pergamon, 1983, 371-376.

 

"Spatial patterning of the spruce budworm after spraying," Math. Models of Renewable Resources, R. Lamberson (ed.), Humboldt State University, 1982, 49-55.

 

"On an age-dependent model of seed dispersal in a patchy environment," J. Math. Biol. 13(1982), 283-303.

 

"Summary analysis of an age-dependent, nonlinear model of seed dispersal," Integral & Functional Differential Equations, T.L. Herdman, S.M. Rankin, H.W. Stech (eds.,), Dekker, 1981, 165-172.

 

"On the steady state of an age dependent model for Malaria," (with D. Berkowitz, F. Farris, C. Gunn, F. Hickernell, S. Kass, F.I. Mansfield, R. Taranto), Nonlinear Systems and Their Applications, Academic Press, 1977, 491-512.

 

"Separatrices in solitude," Rocky Mountain J. Math., 7(1977), 479-440.

 

"Separatrices and solitary periodic solutions," J. Differential Equations, 25(1977), 325-341.

 

"Solitary invariant sets," (with F.W. Wilson, Jr.), Dynamical Systems, Vol. 2, An International Symposium, 1976.

 

"Separatrix structure for regions attracted to solitary periodic solutions," Dynamical Systems, Vol. 2, An International Symposium, 1976.

 

"Separatrix Structure for Elliptic Flows," Ph.D. Thesis, University of Colorado, December 1971, pub. in Amer. J. Math., 97(1975), 221-247.

 

Lectures, Workshops and Posters

 

Invited lecture: “Maturation Delays and Oscillation in Predator-Prey Models,” American Mathematical Society, Western Section meeting at Claremont, CA, May 3-4, 2008, Special Session on Applications of Delay-Differential Equations to Models of Disease.

 

Invited seminar:  “Oscillation in Predator-Prey Models: Chaotic Teacups, Tori, and Delayed Dynamics wit Hangovers,” University of Southern California, Department of Mathematics, Dynamical Systems Seminar, March 3, 2008.

 

Participant: Short Course: Environmental Modeling, Annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America (etc.), San Antonio, Texas, January, 2006.

Participant: Joint mathematics meetings, San Antonio, January, 2006.

 

Participant: Harvey Mudd College Conference on Scientific Computation, November 4, 2005.

 

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

 

Participant:  Joint meeting of the Southern California Section of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium, April 24, 2004.

 

Participant: “Workshop on Mathematical Modeling Courses” Pomona College, November 5-7, 2004; lead discussion on textbooks.

 

Participant: Harvey Mudd College Mathematical Biology Conference, November 8, 2003.

 

Participant: Los Angeles Dynamics Seminar, November 22, 2003

 

Participant:  “Conversations on Mathematics and the Environment” at the Annual Summer Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, Boulder, Colorado, July 31-August 3, 2003.

 

Contributed lecture:  “Environmental Decision Making as a Path to Quantitative Literacy” delivered at the Annual Summer Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, Boulder, Colorado, July 31-August 3, 2003.

 

Contributed lecture:  “Understanding Model through Dimensional Analysis: the Example of Predator-prey Interactions” delivered at the Joint Annual Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, Baltimore, January 14-17, 2003.

 

Participant:  “Conversations on Mathematics and the Environment” at the Annual Summer Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, Boulder, Colorado, July 31-August 3, 2003.

 

“Predator-prey Interactions with Delays due to Juvenile Maturation”, invited talk in the Special Session for Functional Differential Equations, Toronto meeting of the American Mathematical Society, September, 2000.

 

Howard Hughes Outreach Program:  With  students Dan Stoebel (math and biology double major, '00), Sarah Williams (math and econ double major, '99) and Larry Wong (math and physics double major, '98), I gave two workshops on curricular use of the mathematical modeling software, Stella, to 60 high school and junior college faculty in March of 1998 and 1999.

 

Paradigms of Interacting Populations”, for Mathematical Modeling in the Undergraduate Curriculum, at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse, June 12, 13, 1998.

 

“Chaos, Dissipation and Predation”, invited colloquium at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, November 20, 1997.

 

“Modeling Prevalence of Disease in Populations Structured by Disease Density”, invited talk to mathematics students at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, November 21, 1997.

 

“Steady States of Populations Structured by Disease Characteristics in Individuals,” at an NSF Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences meeting on Structured Populations, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, June 1997.

 

“Singular Value Decomposition as a Last Lecture for Linear Algebra Classes”, jointly authored with Colm Mulcahy (Spellman College) and John Rossi (Virginia Institute of Technology), at the Annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematics Association of America, San Diego, CA, January, 1997.

 

"Highlights and Pitfalls in O.D.E. Reform," Panel discussant at the Ninth Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Reno, NV, November 9, 1996.

 

ATLAST Developers Workshop, Seattle, WA, August 13-16, 1996.

 

"Populations Structured by Disease Characteristics in Individuals," Joint Meeting of the Northern California and Southern California Sections of the Mathematical Association of America, in San Luis Obispo, October, 1995.

 

"Pitch, Yaw and Roll,"  co-authored with David Boyd, and presented by Boyd at the annual national meeting of the American Mathematical Society in Orlando in January, 1996.

 

"Steady state of structured populations," poster with Jeff Bradley, presented at undergraduate poster sessions at Pomona College in 1996 and at the Joint Meeting of the Northern California and Southern California Sections of the Mathematical Association of America, in San Luis Obispo, October, 1995.

 

"Mathematical visualization," poster with Doug Fidaleo,  presented at undergraduate poster sessions at Pomona College in 1996 and at the Joint Meeting of the Northern California and Southern California Sections of the Mathematical Association of America, in San Luis Obispo, October, 1995.

 

"Steady population distributions of structured poulations", Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology, Mexico City, June, 1995

 

"The genesis of some differential equations of population biology," Claremont Weekly Biomath Seminar, September, 1994

 

"Structured population models of vector borne disease," International Conference on Differential Equations and Applications to Biology, Harvey Mudd College, honoring Stavros Busenberg, June 1994

 

ATLAST Developers Workshop, San Diego, CA, June, 1994.

 

"On models for prevalence of disease structured by density of the disease", Regional meeting of the American Mathematical Society, November 6-7, 1993, in Claremont.

 

"Matlab exercises to enable geometric intuition for linear transformations" Annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, January 12-15, 1994 in Cincinnati, OH.

 

"Modeling prevalence of disease in poulations structured by disease density," Claremont College Mathematics Colloquium, February 1993.

 

"Dynamics of prevalence of disease in populations structured by disease density," Third International Conference on Mathematical Population Dynamics, Pau, France, June 1992

 

"Ways of knowing", Phi Beta Kappa President's Lecture at the annual initiation of members to Gamma Chapter of California, 1990

 

Demonstrations of Phaser and Phasplan (differential equations software) at a Pew Trust Western Liberal Arts Colleges Cluster curricular workshop, 1989

 

"Mathematics in liberal education," in the Liberal Arts and Liberal Education series at Pomona College, 1988.

 

"Insect population dynamics with apportioned diffusion and recruitment for sterile and fertile subdivisions," at the Southeastern Mathematical Ecology Conference, 1986.

 

"Modeling the big stretch:  finite elasticity and von Karman," for the Claremont Mathematics Colloquium, 1985.

 

"Ciarlet theory of von Karman equations," at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1985.

 

"Plugging a bottle with sterile insect release," (two lectures) for the Claremont Applied Math Seminar, 1984.

 

"Nonlinear hyperbolic equilibria and trajectory equivalence," Claremont Mathematics Colloquium, January 1981.

 

"Some age-dependent models in biology," for the Claremont Mathematical Biology Seminar, 1979.

 

"A rogue's gallery of phase portraits," for the undergraduate mathematics club at UCLA, November 1976.

 

"Separatrix structure near solitary invariant sets," Southern California Ordinary Differential Equations Seminar, April 1975.

 

Book Reviews

ATLAST, Computer Exercises for Linear Algebra, SIAM Review, 1997

 

Theory of Nonlinear Age-Dependent Population Dynamics, by Glenn F. Webb, in Comput. Math. Applic., Vol. 13(1987), 913-915.

 

Population Biology of Infectious Diseases, Life Sciences Research Reports, R.M. Anderson and R.M. May (eds.), in Mathematical Modeling, 7(1986), 1654-1656.

 

Senior Thesis Advising

 

Yavor Kostov, ’10 (Math), Bifurcation in Delay-Differential Equations with Two Delays.

 

Benjamin Coppersmith, ’10 (Math), Predation with Switching for Energy Efficiency.

 

Paige Maas, ’09 (Math),  A Model of Coral Dynamics.

 

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

 

Michael Baumstein, ’09 (Math), Modeling Colony Collapse Disorder.

 

Emi Oakamoto, ’08 (Math), Modeling the Sspread of Tuberculosis in a Population.

 

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

 

Will Leer, ‘07,  (Math)  Optimal strategy for medium distance running events.

 

Meg McCarter, ’07,  (Math) Mathematical Modeling of Residence Times for Lead Poisoning.

 

Brandon Routman, ‘07, (Math), Agricultural Modeling.

  

Talley Starbird, ‘07 (Environmental Analysis), Forests’ Role in the Carbon Cycle. 

 

Robert Gerrity, ’06, Searching for a Neimark-Sacker Bifurcation in a System of Delay Differential Equations.

 

William Jeck, ’05, Lagrangian Data Assimilation in Geophysical Flows and an Assessment of Data Gathering Strategies for Submerged Ocean Drifters

 

Warren Davidson, ’05, Predator Prey Growth Model with a Genetic Variant

 

Nicholas Hawkins, ’04, Modelling Nesting Strategies in Populations of Magellanic Penguins

 

Ryan Hernandez, Pitzer College ’03, Controlling Diabetes

 

Samuel Schlessinger, ’03, The Flow Analysis of Highway Traffic

 

Kim Knapp, ’03, A Mathematical Model of a Juvenile Justice System, (second reader for honors)

 

Jeff Fesenmaier, ’02, A Model for Pricing Financial Derivatives with Applications for European Options

 

Dan Morgan, ’02, Constructing Three Dimensional Topographic Models from Limited Data Sets Using Bessel Functions

 

Audrey Hill, ’02, Local Action, Local Change: Community-based Sustainability Programs in Hunguillla and EcoVillage

 

Van Dang, Scripps College, `01, Traffic Modeling

 

Celia Chan, ’99, Derivation of the Black-Scholes Equation

 

Eli Goldwyn, ’99, Dissipation in Non-dimensional Strict Food Chains

 

Erica Chinn, ‘98, A Two Age, Two Sex, Two Culture Demographic Model.

 

Woon (Larry) Wong, ‘98, The Mystery of the Population Outbreak of the Crown of Thorns Starfish in the Great Barrier Reef.

 

Peter Leth, ’97, Discrete Dynamics of Population Harvesting.

 

Douglas Martin, ’97, Aspherical Inflation of Balloons.

 

Alden Romney, '96, The Diffusion Equation and Black Scholes Analysis,  

 

Abagail Brown, Harvey Mudd College,  '96,  Calculus Reform and Reform Philosophy in High School Mathematics.

 

Curriculum Development Grants and Activities

Mellon Foundation grant for “Mathematical Modeling with Stella for Alternative Calculus”, with Ami Radunskaya.  Summer 1998.

 

Irvine grant support for “A workshop in environmental studies” which I organized to enable a core of interested faculty to tell each other about the role of their curricula in an environmental studies program. Spring 1997.

 

Group leader at an NSF supported Atlast Developers' Workshop, June, 1997 at the University of California, San Diego.

 

Mellon grant for “Simulating and Visualizing Dynamical Systems”, as principal investigator with co-investigators John Molinder (Engineering, HMC) and Bob Borrelli and Courtney Coleman (Math, HMC).  Summer 1996.

 

Irvine grant  for the development of a new general education course, "Quantitative Environmental Decision Making".  Summer 1996.

 

Group leader at an NSF supported Atlast Developers' Workshop, August, 1996, at the University of Washington (Seattle).

 

Pew Foundation support for development of modules of Economics and Chemistry for Calculus III. Spring 1996.

 

Howard Hughes Medical Program, Summer 1990, High School Teaching Co-Investigator

 

Sloan New Liberal Arts Appropriate Technology Program Curricular Grant, Summer 1989,

         Mathematical modeling of shape-memory alloys

 

Claremont Colleges Mellon Curricular Grant, Summer 1986,

         Discrete mathematical modeling of sudden infant death syndrome

 

Courses taught recently:

Mathematical Modeling (Pomona College Math 183): models using Markov chains, ordinary and partial differential equations;  dimensional analysis and scaling; compartment models and residence times; student projects.  Prerequisite: linear algebra and differential equations.  Based on personal notes, reprints and excerpts.

 

Dynamical Systems (Pomona College Math 181):  primarily oriented toward continuous systems with some attention to discrete;  strong emphasis on nonlinear systems;  Hartman-Grobman and Poincare’-Bendixson theorems; long time limits of solutions and their stability; bifurcation; Floquet theory; recently used Glendinning’s Stability, Instability and Chas and personal notes.  Prerequisite: topology of Euclidean space, differential equations, linear algebra.

 

Numerical Analysis (Pomona College Math 165);  numerical linear algebra;  numerical differentiation and integration;  splines; solution of o.d.e. initial and boundary value problems; both theory and practicum using Matlab; recently used Burden and Faires, Numerical Analysis.

 

Differential Equations and Modeling (Pomona College Math 102);  theory and solution of o.d.e.’s; scalar equations and systems; motivated by models from physical, biological and social sciences;  relies heavily on linear algebra; some numerical solution, including systems of more than two equations;  recently used Differential Equations: A Modeling Approach, by Glenn Ledder.

 

Linear Algebra (Pomona College Math 60);  emphasis on vector spaces and linear transformations but includes matrices and similarity transformations; eigens; recently used Robert Messer’s Linear Algebra.  Prerequisite: Calc III. 

 

Calculus I, II, III (Pomona College Math 30, 31, 32):  Standard courses from a variety of standard texts.  Frequently I use the “Harvard” reformed texts for a conceptual basis and supplement with somewhat more traditional exercises.

 

Real and Functional Analysis, I,II (Claremont Graduate University Math 331,332): a first course in abstract measure and integration, beginning with Lebesgue theory in Euclidean spaces;  recently based on Gerald Folland’s Measure and Integration.  Prerequisite: undergrad real analysis and metric spaces.

 

Service to the Professional Community

 

Referee/Reviewer for:

            J. of Theoretical Biology (’05)

            Mathematics Magazine (‘00, ’01, ’02, ’03, ’04, ‘05)

            McGraw Hill (differential equations text, ‘03)

            Prentice Hall (differential equations text, ‘03)

            Natural Resource Modeling (’02)

            Computers & Mathematics with Applications (’01, ‘04)

 

            Journal of Mathematical Biology (’99,’00)

            SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics

            American Mathematical Monthly

            Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations

 

Steering Committee; Program in Environmental Analysis, Pomona College, 2002-2004

 

Coordinator, Program in Environmental Analysis, Pomona College, 2001-2002

 

Coordinator of faculty organizing a program in Environmental Studies at Pomona College,

1996-2001.  Program recognized in April, 2001.

 

Chair, Department of Mathematics, Pomona College, 1993-1996

 

Organizing committee for an International Conference on

            Differential Equations and Applications to Biology and

            Population Dynamics (to honor Ken Cooke), Claremont, 1990

 

Adviser for the Pomona College teams in the COMAP annual Contest in

            Mathematical Modeling, 1986-1991, 1996-1998.  They did well.

 

Service as a citizen    

             Various local political campaigns and organizations

                        (Linda Elderkin for City Council, Yes on S, Yes on Parks and Pasture)

            Boy Scouts Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 407, 1995-2004

            Claremont United Church of Christ Commission on Education and Mission,

Coordinator of Walk for the Hungry, 2000-2002

            Claremont High School Curriculum Committee, 1995-97

                        Curricular liaison with CHS Mathematics Department

            Condit Elementary School Site Council, 1995-97

            Various local political campaigns and organizations.

            Girl Scouts volunteer, 1985-1996

            City of Claremont Community Services Commission, 1981-1990;

                        four years as chair