Joe Fields

For information about the PAcE scholarships go to www.southernct.edu/pathways/.

Teaching, Spring 2010

• MAT 122 -- PreCalculus
  • section 03, MW 6:40-8:30
• MAT 378 -- Discrete Mathematics
  • section 01, TuTh 11:00-12:15
• MAT 252 -- Calculus III
  • section 01, TuTh 4:45-6:35

Office:

EN D118 (Engleman Hall, D-wing)

Phone:

392-6519

Office hours:

Monday

3:25 -- 4:40

Tuesday

3:40 -- 4:30

Wednesday

3:25 -- 4:40

Thursday

4:40 -- 6:05

Friday

12:10 -- 1:00

I am an associate professor in the  Mathematics Department  at Southern Connecticut State University.

My colleague Valeriu Pinciu and I are sponsoring Graph Theory Day 59 at SCSU on May 8th. Graph Theory days are semi-annual one day conferences on various aspects of graph theory.

I am Principal Investigator on the NSF-sponsored Pathways to Academic Excellence (PAcE) grant. The PAcE program provides nearly $600,000.00 for scholarships to SCSU for students majoring in STEM disciplines. See www.southernct.edu/pathways/ for more information.

I am the lead developer/maintainer of the Guava package for the GAP computer algebra system. GAP is designed as a computational aid for Group Theory and Algebra, it has many add-on packages, among them is Guava which performs computations related to error-correcting codes.

I received my PhD degree in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
My areas of research are in the theory of error-correcting codes, and Combinatorics.
My advisor was Vera Pless.

Here are some items on which I've been working:

• My text, A Gentle Introduction to the Art of Mathematics.
• The slides for my talk at the fall 2009 NES/MAA meeting -- Differential Equations with a Fractal Character.
• The slides for my expository talk on Coding theory.
• The slides for my expository talk on Brun's Sieve -- a nice generalization of the sieve of Eratosthenes that solves some notable number theoretic problems.
• The split weight enumerator of the Golay code, partitioned with respect to the supports of two disjoint minimum weight vectors, as a VRML model. (This version is non-rotating.)
• Calendar for 2009 on a rhombic dodecahedron. See here for assembly instructions.
• Version 4.2 of HTMX (a tool that helps you include equations in web documents) is ready.
• I am converting an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car to a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV). Find out more at the EV discussion list.
• A page using VRML models to show that the group of symmetries of the dodecahedron is A₅.
• In order to enhance my performance at Pub Trivia, I created a bunch of blank maps of the countries of the world. These are image maps with links to labelled maps and flags (courtesy of the CIA's World Factbook) for the countries. I also wrote a CGI script called the Flag quiz that helps one to learn the flags of the world.
• My presentation at the 16th annual CSU Academic Computing Conference.
• I'm the Puzzle Editor for SCSU's Math Department Alumni Newsletter.
• DRAFT of "Decoding the Golay code by hand", an on-line math paper.
• Boy's Surface
• A Small Puzzle
• Animations!!!
• A dictionary of combinatorics.
• My Cat-tree/sculpture hobby.
• My hotlist.