Christopher Shaw

In the fall of 2010, I began as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Columbia College Chicago, located in the department of Science and Mathematics. I did my PhD at the University of Maryland, College Park (2008), and I was previously Associate Director of the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications at Maryland, where I also taught large lecture courses in elementary calculus. My primary teaching focus for the first several years at Columbia will be teaching courses at the introductory level (for AY 2010-2011 this means College Math and Calculus I). In the meantime, I am working on research in the area of model theory of weakly o-minimal structures.

Trivia

Erdős number: 4
Laskowski number: 6 (which is humorous, since he is my advisor)
Notable mathematical progenitors and family members:
- Great-grandfather: Gerald Sacks, still active at Harvard/MIT, author of the classic book Saturated Model Theory
- Great-great-great-grandfather: Alonzo Church, pioneering logician, 1903-1995
- (Great)⁸-grandfather: Siméon Poisson, French mathematician who presaged many ideas continued by Riemann, 1781-1840
- (Great)¹⁰-grandfather: Leonhard Euler, whence the constant e; "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all," 1707-1783
- (Great)¹⁶-grandfather: Marin Mersenne, the philosopher, musician, theologian and mathematician whence "Mersenne Prime", 1588-1648
- Second cousin, 12 times removed: Immanuel Kant, Prussian philosopher and author of Critique of Pure Reason, 1724-1804
- Eighth cousin, 6 times removed: Alfred Tarski, the father of modern mathematical logic and co-source of the Banach-Tarski paradox, 1901-1983
- Eighth cousin, 6 times removed: Norbert Wiener, famous in the mainstream as the founder of cybernetics, but also a pure mathematician of note and the namesake for the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications, of which I am currently the Assistant Director, 1894-1964
- Based on slightly shakier data going back to the 15th century, it looks like my 22nd cousin, 6 times removed, is Carl Gauss, who I think is kind of the holy grail of mathematical relationships, 1777-1855
- But I am more happy to note the connection to David Hilbert, who is therefore my 22nd cousin, once removed, 1862-1943