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Jessica Sklar

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This article is about the mathematician. For the author and philanthropist, see Jessica Seinfeld.

Jessica Katherine Sklar (born 1973)[1] is a mathematician interested in abstract algebra, recreational mathematics, mathematics and art, and mathematics and popular culture. She is a professor of mathematics at Pacific Lutheran University, and former head of the mathematics department at Pacific Lutheran.[2]

Education and career

As a high school student, Sklar studied poetry at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She did her undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College, where her mother Elizabeth S. had earned a degree in English (later becoming an English professor at Wayne State University) and her father Lawrence Sklar had taught philosophy. Jessica completed a double major in English and mathematics in 1995.[2][3]

Next, Sklar moved to the University of Oregon for graduate study in mathematics, earning a master's degree in 1997 and completing her Ph.D. there in 2001.[4] Her dissertation, Binomial Rings and Algebras, was supervised by Frank Wylie Anderson.[5]

She has been a faculty member in the mathematics department at Pacific Lutheran since 2001.[2]

Selected publications

  • “‘Bok bok’: exploring the game of Chicken in film,” with Jennifer F. Nordstrom. In: Handbook of the Mathematics of the Arts and Sciences. Ed. Bharath Sriraman. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2020.[6]
  • “‘Elegance in design’: mathematics and the works of Ted Chiang.” In: Handbook of the Mathematics of the Arts and Sciences. Ed. Bharath Sriraman. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2020.[6]
  • “Disciple” (poem). Journal of Humanistic Mathematics 7(2) (July 2017), 418.
  • “A confused electrician uses Smith normal form,” with Tom Edgar. Mathematics Magazine 89(1) (2016), 3–13.
  • “The graph menagerie: abstract algebra and the Mad Veterinarian,” with G. Abrams. Mathematics Magazine 83(3) (2010), 168–179.
  • “Dials and levers and glyphs, oh my! Linear algebra solutions to computer game puzzles.”Mathematics Magazine 79(5) (2006), 360–367.

Recognition

Sklar was a winner of the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award of the Mathematical Association of America in 2011 for her paper with Gene Abrams, The Graph Menagerie: Abstract Algebra and the Mad Veterinarian.[8] The paper provides a general solution to a class of lattice reduction puzzles exemplified by the following one:[3]

"Suppose a mad veterinarian creates a transmogrifier that can convert one cat into two dogs and five mice, or one dog into three cats and three mice, or a mouse into a cat and a dog. It can also do each of these operations in reverse. Can it, through any sequence of operations, convert two cats into a pack of dogs? How about one cat?"

She was the July 2012 Author of the Month at Ada's Technical Books in Seattle, Washgington.

References

  1. ^ Birth year from Library of Congress catalog entry, retrieved 2018-12-02.
  2. ^ a b c Curriculum vitae (PDF), retrieved 2020-08-02
  3. ^ a b Mackenzie, Dana (January 2013), "1 Plus 1 Makes Engaging Book: Mother and Daughter Bridge Generations and Disciplines", Swarthmore College Bulletin
  4. ^ "Jessica Sklar", Mathematics Faculty and Staff, Pacific Lutheran University, retrieved 2020-05-03
  5. ^ Jessica Sklar at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ a b Sriraman, Bharath, ed. (2020). Handbook of the Mathematics of the Arts and Sciences. Springerlink. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70658-0. ISBN 978-3-319-70658-0.
  7. ^ Reviews of Mathematics in Popular Culture:
  8. ^ "MAA Awards Presented" (PDF), Mathematics People, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 58 (10): 1464, November 2011
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