Williams College Math Professor Receives Teaching Award

Print Story | Email Story
Satyan Devadoss

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College professor of mathematics Satyan Devadoss has received the 2014 Northeastern Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics, bestowed by the Mathematical Association of America.

Devadoss specializes in algebraic and combinatorial structures in topology and geometry, and he’s particularly interested in computational geometric ideas such as cartography and origami and the visualization of information. He returns to campus this fall after a year spent as a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Devadoss, who has taught at Williams for 13 years, gives much credit for his being honored to the professors who have served as role models to him.

“My road to this award has been well-paved, being surrounded by a department of remarkable, brilliant teachers who have demonstrated this to me on a daily basis,” he said.

At Williams, Devadoss said, the wall between teaching and research does not exist. His classes are natural extensions of his research. His students join him in exploring mathematics, which in turn leads him to new ideas for his work.


He will receive the award and give a talk at the NES/MAA fall meeting, to be held in November at Southern Connecticut State University. Recipients of the award are automatically nominated for the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award, the MAA's national award for distinguished teaching.

Professor Frank Morgan said of Devadoss, “[He] has his own very visual style of teaching that often combines striking images and artwork with mathematics. His students find his courses difficult and electrifying.”

Devadoss received his doctorate in mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University and his bachelor of science from North Central College. He was an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and has been honored with numerous awards for his teaching and research, including the MAA’s Henry L. Adler National Teaching Award for young faculty and Williams’ Nelson Bushnell Prize.

Four Williams professors have been honored with the MAA Northeastern Section Award in previous years, most recently Susan Loepp in 2010.
 

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Williams Seeking Town Approval for New Indoor Practice Facility

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board last week gave Williams College the first approval it needs to build a 55,000-square foot indoor athletic facility on the north side of its campus.
 
Over the strenuous objection of a Southworth Street resident, the board found that the college's plan for a "multipurpose recreation center" or MRC off Stetson Road has adequate on-site parking to accommodate its use as an indoor practice facility to replace Towne Field House, which has been out of commission since last spring and was demolished this winter.
 
The college plans a pre-engineered metal that includes a 200-meter track ringing several tennis courts, storage for teams, restrooms, showers and a training room. The athletic surface also would be used as winter practice space for the school's softball and baseball teams, who, like tennis and indoor track, used to use the field house off Latham Street.
 
Since the planned structure is in the watershed of Eph's Pond, the college will be before the Conservation Commission with the project.
 
It also will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals, on Thursday, for a Development Plan Review and relief from the town bylaw limiting buildings to 35 feet in height. The new structure is designed to have a maximum height of 53 1/2 feet and an average roof height of 47 feet.
 
The additional height is needed for two reasons: to meet the NCAA requirement for clearance above center court on a competitive tennis surface (35 feet) and to include, on one side, a climbing wall, an element also lost when Towne Field House was razed.
 
The Planning Board had a few issues to resolve at its March 12 meeting. The most heavily discussed involved the parking determination for a use not listed in the town's zoning bylaws and a decision on whether access from town roads to the building site in the middle of Williams' campus was "functionally equivalent" to the access that would be required under the town's subdivision rules and regulations.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories