BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
I am one of a rare breed on the faculty at the University of
Virginia--a native Virginian. I did my undergraduate studies in French
and mathematics as well as my M. S. in mathematics here at the University
before pursuing my graduate work at the University of Chicago. I earned
my Ph.D. in history from Chicago, where I was privileged to work under the
supervision of I. N. Herstein in mathematics and Allen G. Debus in the
history of science. My doctoral work explored the history of the theory of
algebras and especially the role played by Joseph H. M. Wedderburn in
that development.
Since 1988, I have been on the faculty here at UVa where I have a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and History, teaching mathematics and the history of mathematics in the Mathematics Department and the history of science in the History Department. From 1990 through 1999, I was involved with Historia Mathematica, the international journal for the history of mathematics, first as Book Review Editor (1990-1994), then as Managing Editor (1994-1996), and finally as Editor (1996-1999). I served as a member of the Council of the American Mathematical Society (1998-2001) and as a member of the Council of the History of Science Society (2001-2004). In 2002, I was elected a Corresponding Member of the Académie internationale d'histoire des sciences.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
History of Science, in particular the history of science and mathematics in America and the history of 19th- and 20th-century algebra.
CURRENT RESEARCH
My research currently focuses on the life, times, and mathematical
work of the British mathematician, James Joseph Sylvester. In 1998, I
published a book with Oxford University Press of Sylvester's selected
correspondence with historical and mathematical commentary and
have just finished writing his biography. This work on Sylvester has also continued to focus my interests on the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century algebra. In particular, in 2003, Jeremy Gray and I co-organized an NSF-funded weeklong workshop on the history of modern algebra at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley. We are presently working on an edited volume of the essays presented in Berkeley that explore selected developments in algebra from 1800 through 1950. We hope to complete this project in 2006.