Jeff Dodd

Professor of Mathematics

Office : 143 Ayers Hall 
Phone: 256-782-5112
Fax: 256-782-5261 
E-mail : jdodd@jsu.edu

Class Schedule for June 2013

MS 112 Precalculus Algebra

Monday - Thursday:  9:45 AM – 12:15 PM

MS 112 Syllabus and Schedule:  MS 112 June 4 Week 2013.pdf

 

 

Office Hours for June 2013

Daily (Monday – Thursday):  8:45 AM – 9:45 AM and 12:15 PM – 1:15 PM

 

And by appointment.  (To make an appointment:  call me, email me, or talk to me in class!)

     

    

Open Door Policy

I am in (or near) my office most of the time during the day when I am not in class.  Students (and others) are welcome to drop by my office any time.  I will be happy to talk to you as long as I am not tied up with something. 

 

Education

 

Ph.D. Thesis Advisor:  Professor Robert L. Pego

 

 

Current Interests and Activities


Over the years, I have made a high priority of various service projects on the regional, university, and departmental levels:  most notably serving the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA-SE) as Alabama State Director for three years and on the MAA-SE Service Award Committee for many years, directing the Alabama Statewide Mathematics Contest for five years, serving as President of the JSU Faculty Senate for two years, and chairing the Undergraduate and Graduate Mathematics Curriculum Committees in my department for many years.  Due to my efforts in these and other service endeavors, I have won four college level service awards in my 15 year career at JSU. 

 

Over the past several years I have become increasingly involved in research and writing.  I am currently working on three separate parallel tracks:

 

1. Research in partial differential equations (the topic of my Ph.D. thesis):


I have had a paper in this area published by the Electronic Journal of Differential Equations (EJDE).  This journal is refereed in the traditional fashion, but it is online and freely available to all.  For example, you can see my paper here:

 

http://ejde.math.txstate.edu/Volumes/2007/135/abstr.html

 

(I have enough material ready to publish another paper in this area, but at the moment this work is taking a back seat to the two other scholarly tracks I am pursuing.)

 


2.  Projects for Dennis Zill's Applied Mathematics and Differential Equations books:

 

Tim Anderson, mathematics acquisitions editor for Jones-Bartlett publishers, commissioned me to write these projects which appear in Professor Zill's books as contributions under my name and affiliation.  So far, I have completed ten such projects.  The very first project I wrote for Jones-Bartlett is displayed on the publisher's web site as a sample project for Zill's Advanced Engineering Mathematics book.  You can read it here:


http://www.jbpub.com/samples/076374591X/4591X_PROJ_Zill9-16.pdf



3.  Joint research with Vincent Coll:

 

An old graduate school friend of mine and I have a program of research and exposition in progress addressing various issues, mostly (but not entirely) having to do with the geometry of surfaces of revolution and their higher dimensional analogs.  Our first joint paper was published in the Journal of Geometry and has been reviewed in MathSciNet.  A follow-up to that paper has just been published, and will be reviewed in MathSciNet.  A sequel to these papers will be released soon, and a number of other projects are in the works.   

More details about some of my activities can be found below.  And the entire story of my mathematical life is detailed here:

MY CURRICULUM VITAE

Publications, Presentations, and Scholarly Activity

 

Mathematical Research

      “On the Smoothness of the Equizonal Ovaloids”, Journal of Geometry, Vol. 103 No. 3, December 2012.

“Which Surfaces of Revolution Core Like a Sphere?”, Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 83 No. 3, June 2010.

 

“Generalizing the Equal Area Zones Property of the Sphere”, Journal of Geometry, Vol. 90 (2008), 47-55.

 

“Spectral Stability of Undercompressive Shock Profile Solutions of a Modified KdV-Burgers Equation”, Electron. J. Diff. Eqns., Vol. 2007 (2007), No. 135, pp. 1-13.

 

“Some Combinatorial Questions”, Alabama Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 24 No. 2, Fall 2000.

 

“A Novel Tournament: A New Combinatorial Design for the Final Round of the Alabama Statewide Mathematics Contest”, Alabama Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 23 No. 1, Spring 1999.

 

Master’s Degree Thesis Completed Under my Direction

``The Equal Area Zones Property,” by Kristopher Simino (August 5, 2011) 

 

Abstract:  “In Chapter 1 we define and prove the equal area zones property for spheres. Then we discuss two versions of the equal area zones property that make sense in the context of more general, non-spherical ovaloids which we call the isotropic and weak versions.  In Chapter 2 we show that an ovaloid satisfying either the isotropic or weak version of the equal area zones property must be a sphere.  This theorem is due to Otto Stamm, who published it in German in 1951. To the best of our knowledge, our treatment of his result is the only one available in English.”

 

Textbook Contributions

The following projects appear in Advanced Engineering Mathematics, Dennis G. Zill and Warren S. Wright, 5th Edition (Jones Bartlett Publishers, 2014): 

 

“When Differential Equations Invaded Geometry:  Inverse Tangent Problems in the 17th Century''

 

“Two Properties of the Sphere”

 

“Potassium-Argon Dating”

 

“Tricky Timing:  The Isochrones of Huygens and Leibniz”

 

“Vibration Control:  Vibration Isolation”

 

“Vibration Control:  Vibration Absorbers”

 

“Minimal Surfaces”'

 

“Making Waves:  Convection, Diffusion, and Traffic Flow”

 

“The Uncertainty Inequality in Signal Processing”

 

“The Paris Guns:  How the Science of Ballistics Entered the Space Age”

 

Book Review

"Some Books on the Art of Problem Solving", Alabama Journal of Mathematics, Volume 26 No. 1, Spring 2002.  

 

 

For the Alabama Statewide Mathematics Contest:

 

“Results of the Statewide Contest, Alabama Journal of Mathematics”: Vol. 22 No. 2 1998, Vol. 23 No. 2 1999, Vol. 24 No. 2 2000, Vol. 25 No. 2 2001, Vol. 26 No. 2 2002, Vol. 27 No. 2 2003.

 

Algebra II with Trigonometry Examination, 1999 - 2003: lead editor and contributing author, 2009: lead editor and co-author.

 

Geometry Examination, 1999 - 2003: lead editor and contributing author.

 

Final Round Ciphering Questions, 1998 - 2003: co-author and lead editor.

 

 

(See http://mcis.jsu.edu/mathcontest.)  

 

 

Presentations

 

      “What Else Cores Like a Sphere?":  Annual Meeting of the Alabama Association of College Teachers of Mathematics (AACTM), February 28, 2009

 

“Generalizing Some Geometric Properties of the Sphere”:  Colgate University Mathematics Department Seminar Series, November 12, 2007. 

 

“Generalizing a Coring Property of the Sphere”:  2007 Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America, March 17, 2007.  

 

“Rings and Things”:  Mathfest 2006 (Summer Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America), Knoxville TN, August 12, 2006.

 

Panelist, “The No Child Left Behind Act”:  panel discussion at the Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America, March 26, 2004.

 

“Mathematics Program Assessment at Jacksonville State University”:  article in a report prepared and distributed by Bernie Madison of the University of Arkansas at his Assessment Workshop at the Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America, March 26, 2004.

 

Co-organizer, “Encouraging Underrepresented Groups of Students in Math Contests”:  contributed paper session at the Annual Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), January 17, 2003. 

 

“The Alabama Statewide Mathematics Contest: can one contest fit all?”, Alabama Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ACTM) Annual State Conference, Auburn University at Montgomery, Montgomery AL, November 15, 2002. 

 

“Using Challenging Problems from Elementary Mathematics to Stimulate and Motivate Preservice and Inservice Teachers”: Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA-SE), Huntingdon College, Montgomery AL, March 30, 2001.

 

“Generalizing the Equal Area Zones Property of the Sphere”': Annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and Mathematical Association of America (MAA), New Orleans LA, January 13, 2001.

 

“Some Combinatorial Questions”: Annual Meeting of the Alabama Association of College Teachers of Mathematics (AACTM), Troy State University, Troy AL, February 12, 2000.

 

“Convective Stability of Shock Profile Solutions of a Modified KdV-Burgers Equation”: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Minisymposium on Dispersive Equations, Annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Washington D.C., January 21, 2000.

 

“What Else Slices Like a Sphere?”: Annual Meeting of the Alabama Association of College Teachers of Mathematics (AACTM), Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville AL, February 27, 1999.

 

“Vignettes From the History of the Mathematics of Voting”: JSU Math Department/JSU Math Club Colloquium, February 11, 1998.

 

“Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) Viability Standards” (with James Stagliano): Annual Meeting of the Alabama Association of College Teachers of Mathematics (AACTM), University of Mobile, Mobile AL, February 22, 1997.

 

“An Introduction to the Mathematics of Voting”: Fairview High School Mu Alpha Theta Math Club, Cullman AL, December 10, 1996.

 

 

Refereeing

 

Refereed two papers for Mathematics Magazine (a publication of the Mathematical Association of America):  one in 2011 and one in 2012.

 

Refereed two papers for the Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science:  one in 2008 and one in 2010.

 

 

Consulting:  Mathematics Program Review 

 

       Coauthored with Jan Case a mathematics program review commissioned by the administration of the Donoho School in Anniston, Alabama.  Contributed to the report three items in particular:  a review of the current thinking on ``best practices'' in content and methodology, a study of the issue of when students should start the serious study of algebra (the ninth grade as is traditional or earlier), and an overview of math contests and other extracurricular activities for high school students.  (The report was completed in March 2010.)

 

 

Developmental and Editorial Book Reviews

 

Algebra:  Form and Function by William G. McCallum, Deborah Hughes-Hallett, and Eric Connally, for John Wiley and Sons Inc., Publishers, December 2009. 

How to Read and Do Proofs, 4th ed., by Daniel Solow, for Shannon L. Corliss, Associate Editor for Mathematics, John Wiley and Sons Inc., Publishers, Spring 2008. 

Prelude to Calculus, by Sheldon Axler, for Danielle Amico, Editorial Assistant, John Wiley and Sons Inc., Publishers, July 2006.

Algebra:  Form and Function, 1st ed., by William G. McCallum, Deborah Hughes-Hallett, and Eric Connally, for John Wiley and Sons Inc., Publishers, December 2004. 

Calculus:  Early Transcendental Functions, by Larson, Hostetler, and Edwards, one hour telephone interview with Elizabeth Kassab, Editorial Assistant, Houghton Mifflin Publishers, Boston MA, November 2004.

Just in Time Algebra and Trigonometry for Students of Calculus, 2nd ed., by Ronald I. Brent and Guntram Mueller, for Rachel S. Reeve, Senior Project Editor, Addison-Wesley, Boston MA, June 2004.

Differential Equations and Mathematical Modeling (new book), for Amy Gembala, Development Editor, McGraw-Hill, San Francisco CA, July 2003.

Differential Equations and Mathematical Modeling (new book), for Michelle Munn, Development Editor, McGraw-Hill, San Francisco CA, October 2000.

Untitled new book on applied calculus, for Gale Epps, Editorial Assistant, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ, August 2000.

Advanced Engineering Mathematics, 2nd ed. by Dennis G. Zill and Michael R. Cullen, for Barbara Lovenvirth, Developmental Editor, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Norwood MA, December 1998.

Calculus, 5th ed. by C. Henry Edwards and David E. Penney, for Gale Epps, Editorial Assistant, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ, March 1997.

 

Awards

  • College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Service Award, 2007:  "Presented to Jeffrey J. Dodd by his colleagues in the College of Arts and Sciences, Jacksonville State University, 2007." (This is the College of Arts and Sciences' highest award for service. It is given to one faculty member each year, selected by a committee of faculty from the College, and comes with one course teaching reduction and $500 grant for the subsequent year.)
  • College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Service Award, 2005: "Presented to Jeffrey J. Dodd for Institutional Service, College of Arts and Sciences, Jacksonville State University, 2005." (This award is given to several faculty members each year who are selected by the Dean based on recommendations from the department heads.)
  • College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Service Award, 2002: "Presented to Jeffrey J. Dodd by his colleagues in the College of Arts and Sciences, Jacksonville State University, 2002."
  • College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Service Award, 1998: "Presented to Jeffrey J. Dodd for Institutional Service, College of Arts and Sciences, Jacksonville State University, 1998."

My JSU Web Sites

 

(Revised – June 1, 2013) 

Back to MCIS People
Back to the MCIS Department Home Page
Back to the Jacksonville State University Home Page