Chad Topaz

Professor of Mathematics Chad Topaz (A.B. Harvard, Ph.D. Northwestern) is an applied mathematician at Macalester College. His research in nonlinear dynamics, pattern formation, and complex systems has been supported continuously by the National Science Foundation since 2006. Chad's honors include a New Directions Research Professorship at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (the first given to a liberal arts college faculty member), a Kavli Frontiers Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences, a Board of Trustees Award from Macalester College, and the 2013 Outstanding Paper Award of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, given to three publications selected from the pool of 16 SIAM journals over the prior three years. Chad's teaching career stands on an intense passion for human learning, on scrupulous attention to learners’ needs and challenges, and on the belief that education is both an art and a science. He has won UCLA's Robert Sorgenfrey Distinguished Teaching Award in mathematics and Macalester College's Rossmann Excellence in Teaching Award. With teaching interests including calculus, scientific computing, differential equations, mathematical modeling, and complex analysis, Chad also has created a seminar for first year students called "Death, Devastation, Blood, War, Horror, and Mathematics." One of his greatest fulfillments has been the melding of his teaching and research lives in the sphere of undergraduate research. He has advised over 70 summer research, capstone, independent study, and honors experiences, with approximately 50% of these for women and members of other underrepresented groups. Chad has been invited to speak about curriculum and/or pedagogy to audiences such as the Annapolis Group, the New York Six Colleges, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, the Minnesota Private Colleges Council, as well as numerous college and university mathematics departments. More at: http://www.chadtopaz.com

March 2016