Educational Initiatives

Educational Initiatives: Multidisciplinarity

I have been interested in the interface between research and education throughout my career. Much of this emphasis was crystallized through DIMACS, which had education as a major emphasis, reflecting the importance of educational programs in the NSF science and technology centers (STCs). We have been told that one reason Rutgers won an STC competition for DIMACS was because our original proposal put so much emphasis on education. The DHS centers I have led, DyDAn and CCICADA, also included emphasis on education, reflecting the DHS goal of producing a new generation of researchers and practitioners equipped to creaste solutions to problems of society. Through DIMACS, DyDAn and CCICADA, I have been involved in educational programs for students, faculty, professional analysts, and first responders, among others. Through my research and my leadership of DIMACS, DyDAn and CCICADA, I have emphasized the point that problems facing our society and our planet are inherently multidisciplinary, and educational programs through these organizations have reflected this view. This calls for modifications in how we educate and re-educate our students and also our faculty. My interest in multidisciplinary education precedes the existence of these organizations. Early on at Rutgers, I took great interest in modifying the undergraduate math major to introduce students to the applications of mathematics and to a variety of different mathematical topics early in their college career. When I first came to Rutgers, I developed a course in calculus for biologists and developed new materials to be used in such a course. In the early 1970s, I worked with Rutgers ecologists to create a BioMath major, something very unique then. I also took an interest in modifying the introductory mathematics sequence and gave an invited talk at the International Congress on Mathematics Education in 1980 on the topic. My 2020 article in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology revisits those early discussions from a modern point of view. My co-edited books on Discrete Math in the Schools and BioMath in the Schools explore these themes as well. During the course of organizing a series of meetings called the US-China Computer Science Leadership Summit, I discovered that Chinese faculty were encountering the same challenges as US faculty in designing courses and curricula that would prepare students to succeed in a world where their work might increasingly require interactions with people trained in other disciplines. I organized a session on this topic at one of the US-China summits and later wrote an article in the Journal of Computer Science and Technology on this topic. I have also worked with colleagues in other institutions on these ideas through service on the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM), the MAA Committee on the Undergraduate Program, the MAA-SIAM Committee on Applications of Mathematics in the College Curriculum (which I chaired), and the SIAM Education Committee.

Educational Initiatives: DIMACS PreCollege Teacher and Student Programs

In the early years of DIMACS, I worked with Joe Rosenstein to develop the Leadership Program in Discrete Mathematics, which introduced high school teachers and later middle school teachers to topics they might introduce in their classrooms and also introduce to others in their district. I also worked with Rosenstein to develop the DIMACS Young Scholars Program that introduced high school students to new and non-conventional mathematical topics. I later paired high school teachers with researchers in collaborative efforts in new approaches to integrate research and education in discrete mathematics. This was a key component of the DIMACS Research and Education Institute and the DIMACS Connect Institute. These programs brought both teachers and researchers together to discuss a particular research area in discrete mathematics. The researchers worked on new problems and together with the teachers they worked to develop usable materials for the classroom and investigations appropriate for high school students. This idea then extended to biomathematics, where both bio and math teachers came together with each other and with bio and math researchers to explore topics in computational biology, epidemiology, etc. in the BioMath Connect Institute and BioMath Connection. These various programs were co-organized with the advice and help of Midge Cozzens, who then became the project leader. Since teacher and student programs wouldn’t reach as many people as programs emphasizing materials development, Cozzens and Roberts developed module projects, refined and led by Cozzens, that led to numerous modules on the DIMACS and CCICADA websites that are classroom tested and usable at different levels from high school to college, and continue to be widely used.

Educational Initiatives: Modules

Introducing new content for education is an iterative process, with pieces often being developed, either for training teachers or for use in existing courses. Educational modules of various forms are a key piece of this. At a 1976 workshop on applied mathematical modules at Cornell in 1976, where I gave a series of lectures, the group spent time producing modules for classroom use. Together with Helen Roberts, I developed several modules on energy use to produce energy (“net energy analysis”) and on malaria modeling, and then I co-edited a book on Discrete and Systems Models with Bill Lucas that was later translated into Chinese. The development of modules for use in the classroom has been a consistent interest since. I created the DIMACS and CCICADA modules series, both aimed at high school and college teachers, ran a project on development of Mathematics of Planet Earth modules, and developed a variety of activities built around module building – all with the early help from and primary leadership by Midge Cozzens. This includes the Reconnect Program, where participating teachers produce modules for classroom use. The modules programs continued under the SENTRY center. These programs have continued under the leadership of Midge Cozzens for many years, aimed at making recent research advances known to students and teachers in a timely manner.

Educational Initiatives: “Reconnect”

Not many faculty do much research after their PhD degree. But we have found that many are eager to continue to be exposed to current developments, use them to enhance their teaching, and also enjoy creative activities such as developing materials they can introduce to their students and others. This is one of the reasons for the success of the modules series I have been involved in. Another approach is the “Reconnect” program that I created at DIMACS in 1998. Reconnect Workshops expose faculty teaching undergraduates to current topics in math and computer science relevant to the classroom, and have them prepare modules. The program was created with funding from NSF, and later received funding from NSF to run Reconnect in collaboration with minority-serving institutions Spelman, Morgan State, and Howard. These programs continued under DHS funding through DyDAn, CCICADA, and SENTRY. Through follow-up activities by participants at their own institutions, the CCICADA Reconnect workshops alone have reached over 33,000 students and faculty nationwide. The Reconnect program has been led by Midge Cozzens for many years.

Educational Initiatives: REU

It is widely understood that undergraduate research programs are a very good way to introduce students to graduate school. I developed the first DIMACS Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in 1996. This program offers a one-on-one research project experience to undergraduates from around the U.S. under mentorship of DIMACS and CCICADA researchers. A few years later, together with Jaroslav Nesetril, I organized the first NSF-sponsored international REU program, which partners with Nesetril’s DIMATIA Center at Charles University in the Czech Republic. The DIMACS REU program has grown to some 40 students annually and has been managed by others after I initiated it, most recently Lazaros Gallos.

Educational Initiatives: US-African BioMath Initiative

As an outgrowth of the DIMACS special focus on Mathematical and Computational Epidemiology, I initiated a US-African BioMath Initiative. in collaboration with the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State. This brought together US and African students to introduce them to a research area and prepare them for full participation in a follow-on research workshop. The initiative ran a series of workshops on topics such as economic epidemiology, conservation biology, genetics and disease control, and landscape ecology and environmental sustainability, during the period 2008 to 2012. Key people who helped with these programs were Simon Levin and Wayne Getz and Abba Gumel. When NSF asked me to organize a workshop in Senegal in 2016 on mathematical modeling of infectious disease with a focus on Ebola, I nvited some of the African students who had participated in the BioMath Initiative, and was delighted that they had now become true leaders in BioMath research in Africa. The Senegal meeting led to a variety of interesting follow-up workshops.

Educational Initiatives:  Cyber Security Education and Training

Through CCICADA, I led a project that prepared a report on Cyber Security Education for the Cyber Security Division of DHS, including recommendations for education of the DHS workforce and the extended homeland security workforce at the regional, state, and local levels. The report also gave recommendations about educational programs to produce more cyber security experts, and general public cyber security education beginning in precollege. Working with Dennis Egan, I ran a project that produced recommendations for training programs in digital forensics for both first responders and forensics experts, working closely with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC).

Underrepresented Groups

I have worked hard to involve faculty and students from underrepresented groups in programs at DIMACS, DyDAn and CCICADA. Many of the US students participating in the Africa program were African American and it was a remarkable experience for them to travel to Africa. Both DIMACS and CCICADA programs have included heavy involvement of minority students in REUs and Minority Serving Institution (MSI) faculty in Reconnect. Seven MSIs have been involved in CCICADA research: Morgan State, Howard, CCNY, Texas Southern, Tuskegee, Tennessee State, UT-San Antonio. I have worked closely with those schools and my grants have provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to MSI partners to become real research partners. I am proud of the fact that some MSI students supported in earlier years through these programs are now faculty at MSI institutions. With my help, CCICADA regularly hosted teams of students from MSIs during summer programs.  Among the many other MSIs I have worked with through DIMACS, DyDAn and CCICADA are Cal St. Dominguez Hills, Clark Atlanta, Spelman, U. of Houston-Downtown, NC A&T, NC-Pembroke, Jackson State, and UT-El Paso. I have served on the External Advisory Board of the NSF Minority Excellence Center at Clark Atlanta University and worked with the National Association of Mathematicians that promotes the mathematical development of all underrepresented minorities. I have also emphasized the involvement of women in the mathematical sciences. Most recently, I made a proposal to the Rutgers Chancellor for a program on Advancing Women in Computer Science and received three years of funding for a program that included a complete overhaul of the introductory computer science sequence to emphasize more topics that seem to appeal to women; for co-curricular activities in a living-learning center that involves women who are interested in majoring in computer science; and for a research program to understand what causes women to leave computer science and what might encourage them to stay.