Name: |
 Peering through the shadow of an expanded hyperdodecahedron,
built in Zometool by high school students at the
2012 SBU STEM Camp. |
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Christopher B. Hill, Ph.D.
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Academic School: |
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School of Arts and Sciences
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Academic Department: |
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Mathematics
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Titles/Responsibilities: |
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Contact Information: |
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Office Location/Hours: |
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De La Roche 301 C
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Courses Taught: |
Undergraduate Instruction Graduate Instruction Projects Mentored - Mentor for Daniel Winger's 2012/2013 Senior Comprehensive Project: The Fourier Inversion Theorem with an Application to Quantum Mechanics.
- Mentor for Jennifer Dempsey's 2011/2012 Senior Comprehensive Project: Representations of Graphs Modulo n.
- Mentor for Natalya Ghostlaw's 2010/2011 Senior Comprehensive Project: The Creation of Random Number Generators Using Number Theory.
- Mentor for John Postl's 2010/2011 Senior Comprehensive Project: Riemann's Rearrangement Theorem: Proof, Illustration, and Generalization.
- Mentor for Casey Krug's 2009/2010 Senior Comprehensive Project: Bounds for the Partition Function.
- Mentor for John Grillo's 2008/2009 Senior Comprehensive Project: Deriving the Leibniz Series Using Number Theory.
- Mentor for Jayne Pollard’s 2007/2008 Senior Comprehensive Project: Public Key Cryptosystems.
- Mentor for Shane Randolph’s 2007/2008 Senior Comprehensive Project: The Central Limit Theorem.
- Faculty examiner for Kaitlin Drago’s 2005/2006 honors project: An Econometric Analysis of the Determinants of Credit Ratings for the Issuers of Municipal Bonds.
- Field examiner for Lindsey Besch’s 2004/2005 honors project: A Proof that the Standard Normal Function Cannot Be Integrated in Finite Terms.
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Academic Degrees: |
- Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Research area: number theory.
- Dissertation: Uniform distribution, P2 Behrend sequences, and some spaces of arithmetic functions. Advisor: Dr. A. J. Hildebrand.
- M.S. in Mathematics, Colorado State University.
- B.S. in Mathematics with a Minor in Physics, Colorado State University.
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Professional Background: |
- Assistant Professor of Mathematics, St. Bonaventure University: Aug. 2003–present.
- Assistant Professor, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa: July 2001–Dec. 2002.
- Assistant Professor, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina: Sept. 2000–May 2001.
- Lecturer, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa: Aug. 1998–July 2000.
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Accomplishments: |
Workshops Organized Recent Talks - Banquet talk at the Spring 2013 Mathematical Association of America Seaway Section Meeting at SUNY Fredonia. “The abc Conjecture and Beyond.”
Grants - Martine Grant (with Jeff Peterson and Denny Wilkins): Development of Proposed Curricular Changes to Improve the Effectiveness of a Quantitative Reasoning Requirement at St. Bonaventure University. Grant was for $3600. (2007/2008)
- Martine Grant (with Jeff Peterson and Denny Wilkins): An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Quantitative Reasoning Requirement at St. Bonaventure University. Grant was for $6000.(2006/2007)
Additional Accomplishments - Hill, C. (July, 1999). Uniform distribution modulo one on subsequences, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society.
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, received as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
- Departmental Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics, received as a graduate teaching assistant at UIUC.
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Teaching Philosophy: |
My goals as a teacher are to help students become independent thinkers and to help them develop the skills and the confidence needed to tackle challenging problems. Accordingly, my philosophy of teaching is characterized by the Socratic method, small-group work, and problem-solving strategies.
When the instructor poses questions to his or her students, be it in class or during office hours, the students become active, rather than passive, participants in their learning. During office hours, an instructor can tailor the questions to the needs of a particular student. The instructor’s queries can be designed so that it is the student who discovers the key that unlocks the problem at hand. I've observed again and again that students are capable of more than they realize.
An instructor can ask only so many questions during the lecture. Inevitably, most of the time most of the students are not involved in the discussion. Small-group work is a way for nearly all of the students to be active participants in their learning nearly all of the time. As students work together in groups of about three on a worksheet or project, they are providing themselves with examples, making mistakes without being penalized, talking mathematics, and meeting their classmates.
Every problem contains within it a lesson. Author Richard Bach puts it this way: There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts. The lessons lurking within a mathematics problem are the principles that we apply to solve the problem, whose utility extends to countless other problems. These “gifts” are called problem-solving strategies. Although students encounter a vast number of problems during a mathematics course, only a small number of problem-solving strategies, in conjunction with basic knowledge of course material, are required to tackle almost all of them. By unlocking so many problems simultaneously, problem-solving strategies help to demystify mathematics. I strive to point out key strategies as they arise in the problems that I work for my students.
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Current Research Interests/Projects: |
To promote mathematical problem-solving at St. Bonaventure, I created and teach MATH 281. The Problem Solving Seminar, run the Bona's Bonus Problems Program, and act as the local supervisor for the Putnam Mathematics Competition and the University of Rochester Mathematical Olympiad.
Dr. Jeff Peterson, Dr. Denny Wilkins, and I have worked on an extended project on improving the quantitative literacy of students at St Bonaventure University. In particular, we studied the effectiveness of the quantitative reasoning requirement in the Clare College curriculum (the core curriculum of St. Bonaventure). Our project was funded by 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 Martine Grants. In the spring of 2013, we created a new course, MATH 135. Quantitative Reasoning, which is a foundational course in quantitative literacy.
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Other Interests/Community Involvement: |
I'm fascinated by the visual presentation of information, so I tend to align myself with projects and activities that may be characterized in this way. For example, I organize the Student Research & Creative Endeavors Exposition, I created and maintain the website for The Laurel (St. Bonaventure's campus literary magazine), and I'm the web editor for the SBU School of Arts and Sciences. I enjoy cinema and I'm looking for an opportunity to learn American Sign Language.
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