Since you've arrived at my page, you no doubt already know that I'm a professor in the Math Sciences Department at Lewis and Clark College. (Be sure to visit our department Alumni Page so you can see what our graduates do.) The picture at left was taken a bit before I started my academic career. I finished my Ph.D. at Colorado State University in 1987 under the direction of Ben Manvel. I really wasn't planning on getting a doctorate, but I was having too much fun in grad school.
This school year is my third as chair of the department, a position we take turns at. In the fall I'll be teaching two sections of calculus I (Sect 1; Sect 2) and Discrete Mathematics. And in the
spring I have Linear Algebra and Discrete Math again.
I do a little research in graph theory. That's the Petersen graph in the blue background in case you don't know. As I tell my students, it's an example or counterexample to almost everything in graph theory.
In summer of 2000 I spent a few weeks in Japan. Care to see a few photos? And in summer 2001 I took a German language course at Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken, Germany and did a little travelling as well. In the course of my travels I discovered the center of the universe. I took a few pictures in Germany, too.
My excursion in the summer of 2002 was a trip to Tanzania to visit a former student who then taught physics, math and occasionally chemistry at the International School of Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam. One of the advantages of teaching at Lewis & Clark is having former students to visit all over the world. So you may have guessed I like to travel, too. In any case, here are some safari photos.
My most recent travels have been a return trip to Tanzania, as well as Kenya, as faculty leader of Lewis and Clark's overseas program to East Africa. It was a tremendous experience, meeting some fantastic people while visiting Arusha, the Indian Ocean coast, Tarangire and Serengeti National Parks, the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Victoria and other great places in Tanzania, not to mention Nairobi and Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Following a few months in East Africa were seven weeks in Europe--York, Paris, Strasbourg; a visit to distant relatives outside Offenburg, Germany; Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich and London.
I enjoy learning about cryptography, both historical and
current uses. If you check out the cryptography web site, there's really nothing more that
I need to add to it. Occasionally I teach a course to pass on some of what I've learned,
most recently in spring semester of 2000. Students in that course did projects whose subjects and further links might be of interest. Also of
interest are the National Cryptologic Museum and the journal Cryptologia.
To the right is the enigma machine, (Click on the picture for more pictures and info.) used for encipherment by the German military and government during World War II. You might be astounded by the number of well-known mathematicians who were involved in breaking the cipher. Their work was carried out at Bletchley Park. Included in their number was Alan Turing, considered by many to be the father of computer science.
In a previous life I was a Peace Corps
volunteer and taught at the Lycée de Markala in Mali, West Africa. Mali is wired
now! This is a big change--when I was there 20 years ago, electricity was something of a
rare commodity. Click on the Malian flag to find lots of information about Mali.
Another new thing about Mali since I was there is the emergence of Malian
music on the world scene. The pop music was always great but you couldn't find
recordings in this country until relatively recently.
And in my free time I like to
research my family history. My ancestors
who emigrated from Germany to the U.S. (Missouri) were named Krüssel, Robben (both
from small towns near Wesuwe,
Hannover very near the Dutch border), Trankle (from Baden), Lambrecht (from Breslau, Prussia--now Wroclaw, Poland), Baumann (from Sasbach, Baden), Hoog (from Kappelrodeck/Waldulm, Baden via Windschläg, Baden), Grieshaber (from Hofweier, Baden), Bahr (from Ortenberg, Baden), Naeger,
and Schilli (from Rammersweier, Baden) These latter towns are near Offenburg, Germany which can be found on a map almost directly across the Rhine River from Strasbourg,
France. E-mail me (see below) if you belong
to any of these. I'm always looking for long-lost relatives. I also have a list of surnames of my
ancestors, should you be interested. Much more detail is posted at Rootsweb
WorldConnect That's a picture of my
great-great-grandfather, Thomas Hoog, the first of my ancestors to come to this country.
According to his obituary, he arrived in Philadelphia in 1832.
Here's a good genealogy site.
