Present students PhD Elcim Elgun, Compactifications of groups
Matthew Weirsma
Previous students PhD
Mahya Ghandehari, 2010/08, Harmonic analysis of Rachmann algebras,
AARMS post-doc with
Keith Taylor, Dalhousie University; now visiting Assitant Professor,
University of Saskatchewan
Laura Marti Perez, 2011/12, Fourier algebras of groupoids
MMath
Aaron Tikuisis, 2007/08, Amenability for the Fourier algebra,
PhD with
G. Elliot, University of Toronto; now post-doc at University of Muenster
Micheal Brannan, 2008/08, Operator spaces and ideals in Fourier
algebras, PhD with
J. Mingo and
R. Spiecher, Queen's University; now post-doc at Uinversity of
Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Cameron Zwarich, 2008/08, von Neumann algebras for
abstract harmonic analysis, Apple Computer, Cuppertino
Matthew Wiersma, 2011/09-2012/08, Approximation properties for
group C*-algebras, PhD student, Waterloo
Previous Post-docs Ebrahim Samei,
2007/01-2008/12, Amenability properties of Banach algebras of harmonic
analysis
Hun Hee Lee,
2007/09-2009/04, Operator spaces and Banach algebras of harmonic
analysis
Pekka Salmi, 2010/09-2011/08, Locally compact quantum groups
Yin-Hei (Michael) Cheng, 2011/01-2011/08, Abstract harmonic analysis
Personal
-I am married to Stephenie Koerne. A
picture of us together.
-I really like trains and will rubber-neck every time I hear a Nathan
Air Chime or an EMD two-stroke motor.
-I like to read magazines, especially
The New Yorker,
The Atlantic Monthly and
Harper's.
-I'm very fond of Film Noir, Westerns and movies by the Coen Brothers.
To look up information on movies visit the
Internet Movie Database.
-I'm a pretty bad speller and thus must frequently make use of
Merriam Webster.
Although for less Americanized spelling, I often prefer the
Oxford English Dictionary.
-I ride my bicycle frequently. I am a member of the
Waterloo County Wanderers.
I was a member of
Brazos Valley Cyclists
when I lived in Texas.
-I have an unusual fascination with weather. See the local weather in
Waterloo, and compare it to
Edmonton or
College Station, TX.
Also see weather radar
Environment Canada -- Exeter,
NOAA -- Great Lakes [note: EDT=UTC-4, EST=UTC-5].
-I also am unusually fascinated by geography. See
MapQuest for some
maps and driving directions. There are excellent relief maps of the
United States through
here.
I couldn't find such nice maps of Canadian Provinces. However, there
are many interesting tables and plates available though
Statistics Canada. I've also had some fun looking at information at the
U.S. Census Bureau.
Trivia
Newton couldn't count?
"The popular idea of mathematics is that it is largely concerned with
calculations," writes Karl Sabbagh in The Riemann Hypothesis (Farrar, Straus
and Giroux). "What many people don't realize -- and mathematicians at parties
have given up correcting them -- is that mathematicians are often no better
calculators, and sometimes worse, than the average non-mathematician. . . .
Even the giants of mathematics suffer from this minor disability: 'Sir Isaac
Newton,' said one observer, 'though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could
not readily make up a common account; and, when he was Master of the Mint,
used to get somebody else else to make up his accounts for him.' "
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
I am involved in an evil enterprise.
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make
empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a
covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of
Hell."
-- St. Augustine
Don't add this to your Teaching Statement.
"Our brains respond better to difficulty than we imagine," writes Ian Leslie in Intelligent Life magazine. "In schools, teachers and pupils alike often assume that if a concept has been easy to learn, then the lesson has been successful. But numerous studies have now found that when classroom material is made harder to absorb, pupils retain more of it over the long term, and understand it on a deeper level. Robert Bjork, of the University of California, coined the phrase 'desirable difficulties' to describe the counterintuitive notion that learning should be made harder by, for instance, spacing sessions farther apart so that students have to make more effort to recall what they learned last time. Psychologists at Princeton found that students remembered reading material better when it was printed in an ugly font."
Yay for group-think.
"Plenty of research suggests having a strong, supportive social network has a positive impact on one's health and well-being," says Pacific Standard magazine. "But with an election approaching, it's worth noting that this sort of interconnectedness apparently has a dark side. It seems to make us less-sophisticated thinkers, at least in the realm of politics and policy. That's the conclusion of a study recently published in the journal Political Psychology. [Researchers] conclude close-knit networks of friends and acquaintances apparently create 'social bubbles,' which can limit 'how one communicates with others and reasons about politics.' The result, they add, is 'low-quality thinking' about matters of great importance."
