Sue Geller
Texas A&M University
Department of Mathematics
Blocker 219B
College Station, TX 77843-3368
Fax: (979)862-4190
E-mail: geller@math.tamu.edu
Current Jobs
Professor Emerita
Director of Honors Programs in Mathematics
Professor of Mathematics
Professor of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences
Research Interests
Algebraic K-Theory, Cyclic Homology, Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computational Biology, Mathematics Education.
My original research hat was in the fields of Algebraic K-Theory and cyclic and Hochschild homologies, where my research centered on determining the relationships between the K-theory and the homology theories and exploiting these relationships to provide algorithms for computing the K-theory and cyclic homology.
Microarray technology provides a way of studying which genes are active in different types of cell tissue, but analyzing the resulting data has many challenges. Unlike traditional statistics in which one has many more replicates than variables, in microarray data there are many more variables (the genes) than there are replicates (the chips or slides), so new statistical methods, or at least ways of pre-processing the data so that traditional means can be used, are needed. I worked on useful methods of preprocessing. This need to find ways of analyzing "small samples" (i.e., few replicates) also occurs in studies at the College of Veterinary Medicine, where I analyzed data from experiments, often with small samples. So my work in each area complimented the other.
In the 1990s, I developed an interest in Mathematics Education, particularly at the post-seconday level. While I have published no research articles myself, I have been the Ph.D. advisor for two people with Mathematics Education specialty as well as helped design and then "ran", i.e., do the advising for, an MS in Mathematics program for people who want to teach at the secondary and post-secondary levels.
As a result of my work on running the departmental honors program, I did research on what information available from college applications correlates to success in University honors programs for freshman and what would correlates to completing an honors program. At the departmental level, in addition to correlates to success in the math department honors program for incoming freshman, I looked at the correlation of the Math Placement Exam and success in the recommended math class the student's first semester in hopes of improving our advising.
Curriculum Vitae in pdf format.
Presentations
TEACHING
MATH 629 History of Mathematics - Fall 2005
This course is a web-based course, consisting of readings, homework problems,
a book report, and a term paper. To reach the home page for the course, click
here .
A Survey of Mathematical Problems - Math 645 and 646
A Survey of Mathematical Problems is a two semester, first year graduate,
course written for both people interested in teaching and people who
might need help transitioning to graduate work, e.g., because they didn't
have a full mathematics undergraduate major or not all subjects were
offered at their undergraduate school or have been away from school for a
while. Selected portions of the
courses have been used as a senior seminar course.
The following is the instructor's guide without the solutions to the
exercises and problems. We (Harold Boas and I) are interested
in how the course works for others. We give permission to copy the file
for classroom use as long as you don't make money off of the copies or
publish our work as yours. If you make money off of the copies, send us half.
Instructor's Guide -
pdf format.
Student's Guide -
pdf format.
The course is written to be done with the students working in groups.
Since we wanted area high school teachers to take the course, we offered it
once a week for three hours (Thursdays 6-9 pm). In 2004 the course was
taught twice a week for 1 1/4 hours each time, which was also fine,
but we do not recommend using
it in three 50 minute classes per week as the students need time to
mull over problems. Once the MS for people who want to teach became a distance program, this course had been taught online. To read my last
home page for Math 645 click here; for Math 646 click here.
Seminar in Algebra
This course is a second course in Abstract Algebra and is offered at the Masters level. There is a prerequisite of at least one semester of undergraduate abstract algebra, i.e., either groups, quotient groups, and group homomorphisms, or rings, quotient rings, and ring homomorphisms, or Math 645-646. The prerequisites will not be waived. As a master's level course, it will go quickly, with 2-4 sections a week and substantial homework. However, the difficulty of the homework will not be at the Ph.D. level for which the book could be used. Click here for my course home page.
Independent Study in Algebra II
This course is the second semester of Seminar in Algebra and covers group actions and the Sylow Theorems, module theory, the rest of field extensions, and Galois theory including the requisite material on solvable groups. Click here for my course home page.
Factoring polynomials with Rational Coefficients
Many courses, from college algebra to graduate algebra, teach or require the
knowledge of factoring polynomial with rational coefficients. Yet many of
the theorems and procedures I learned in high school aren't taught today.
The following link to a .pdf file (see below for a link to Acrobat Reader if
you need it) is a handout I constructed and have used with prospective teachers,undergraduate majors, and graduate students. The handout contains all the proofs, which may be ignored by those interested only in the computational aspects. There are theorems that are unusual but useful in here as well. Factoring Theorems
The handout is copyrighted but you have permission to reproduce it and recoup your costs, but you may not publish it as your own or make money on it. Should you make any profit, send me half :-)
Trying to Make the World a Better Place
Starting in January, 1990 and ending in July, 1994, the Mathematical
Association of America's Committee on the Participation of Women put on
skits at the Winter and Summer Joint Mathematics meetings. These skits are,
we hope, funny and enjoyable but also portray micro-inequities, those small,
usually humorous, injustices that often wear at women because they happen so
frequently. Unfortunately, almost all of them still occur, but perhaps not
as frequently. I hope you will enjoy them too. The following file of the
skits is a .pdf
file.
Skits
To open the file you may download the Acrobat
Reader
I am a trained mediator and was a member of the board
of directors of the Dispute Resolution Center of the Brazos Valley.
Education
Ph.D., Mathematics, Cornell University,1975
M.S., Mathematics, Cornell University, 1972
B.S., Mathematics, Case Institute of Technology , 1970