Southwestern University’s Math and Computer Science department is looking to hire a new tenure-track math professor. Currently, four candidates are in the interview process with a result approaching later this semester.

Candidates include Dr. John Ross, Emily Hendryx, Dr. David Krumm, and Dr. Cory Colbert.

Before being a visiting assistant professor here at Southwestern for three years, Dr. Ross received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University. He does research in geometric analysis with applications in Gerrymandering. While at Southwestern, he has participated in a SCOPE summer research experience, helped organize the SU EQUIP program, begun a mathematics lecture series called “107”, and received a teaching award from the school.

Emily Hendrix is a current PhD candidate at Rice University researching pediatric ECG data and analysis. Her work builds on data to improve mathematical models for predicting heart deformations and events. She uses techniques from linear algebra and data science. Data from an ECG (electrocardiogram) is very complicated and nuanced, so producing a method for finding and predicting patterns is critical.

Dr. David Krumm received his PhD from the University of Georgia and is originally from Costa Rica. His research involves number theory and dynamical systems. His work is a combination of theory and computation. One application is cryptography – encrypting large amounts of data that can’t be cracked without a quantum computer.

Dr. Cory Colbert earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and currently does research in commutative algebra and noetherian geometry. He has published research with President Burger and is currently at Williams College.

Senior Physics and Computational Mathematics major Yash Gandhi is a student representative on the committee choosing the professor.

“It has been an absolute blast,” Gandhi said. “I really enjoy helping plan events. Also, while reviewing other people’s applications, I have actually learned a lot about what generally happens when I submit my application to internships and graduate schools.”

Along with helping with events and interviews, Gandhi helps to provide student perspectives to the rest of the committee via candidate reviews from students who have visited lectures.

“Adding student input will hopefully add a great deal of confidence to the final choice,” Gandhi said.

The winning candidate will be chosen in the next few months. Until then, we will all wait in eager anticipation.

Originally Published February 3, 2018