Our Faculty - Mathematics

Jacqueline Anderson's scholarship interest is in arithmetic dynamics, a blend of number theory and dynamical systems.

Stephen Flood is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Bridgewater State University.  He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 2012.  Before coming to Bridgewater in 2015, he taught at the Pennsylvania State University and at the University of Connecticut.
 
In his research, he studies the interplay between counting arguments, the theory of computation, and mathematical logic.  He has also mentored undergraduate research with an applied focus, such as a project with the goal of writing a simple computer algebra system from scratch.
At Bridgewater, Dr. Flood has taught a range of classes including calculus, linear algebra, and transitions to advanced mathematics.

More information about Dr. Flood’s teaching and research can be found at his personal website http://mathlogic.org/stephenflood/.  

Ward Heilman started his academic career as a Religion and Philosophy major. After dropping out of college a few times he finally finished an undergraduate degree in Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Extensive experience driving trucks and taxis, unloading railroad cars and working in warehouses led back to a second undergraduate degree; this time in Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science. He worked a few short stints at IBM and then obtained a Master's degree in Mathematics from Pennsylvania State University. Eventually he earned a PhD in Mathematics, with a specialization in Combinatorics, from Northeastern University.  He has enjoyed teaching at Bridgewater since 1996.

Professor Heilman delights in teaching courses in Logic, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Abstract Algebra, Cryptology and Formal Language Theory. He encourages students to engage in undergraduate research and has mentored a Shea Scholar, many honors theses and several Adrian Tinsley Summer Research projects.

Dr. Heilman's original interests were in Mathematical Logic and Group Theory. He later became enchanted by Graph Theory and Combinatorics. Most recently he has become fascinated with Cryptology, in particular public key encryption systems and elliptic curve cryptography.

Shannon Lockard has been teaching at Bridgewater since Fall 2007. She believes that working with students and teaching them mathematics is the best part of her job. In addition to teaching, she has also worked with a number of students on undergraduate research. She has taught a wide range of classes while at Bridgewater. She teaches calculus and linear algebra often and has taught many upper level courses as well, including Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Number Theory.  Away from Bridgewater, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two sons.

Dr. Lockard does research in the area of enumerative combinatorics. Currently she is interested in studying restricted partition functions and related sequences. In addition to her mathematical research, she also engages in the scholarship of teaching and learning as a way of informing her teaching.

Vignon Oussa's first interest is teaching mathematics. He has taught several courses including remedial courses, most upper level courses and several other classes in between. Dr. Oussa is currently involved with the Math Club and is the coordinator of internship and job opportunities for math majors at Bridgewater State University. He has also been active in research on the Representation Theory of Lie Groups and Wavelets Analysis on non commutative groups.

Selected Publications:
B.Currey, V.Oussa, Admissibility for Monomial Representations of Exponential Lie Groups, Journal of Lie Theory 22 (2012), No. 2, 481-487
V.Oussa, Bandlimited Spaces on Some 2-step Nilpotent Lie Groups With One Parseval Frame Generator, to appear in Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics
V.Oussa, Admissibility For Quasiregular Representations of Exponential Solvable Lie Groups, Colloq. Math, vol. 131, No. 2 (2013)

Kevin Rion's teaching interests include probability theory and mathematical aspects of statistics, as well as analysis. His scholarship interests are in Probability Theory, Mathematical Statistics, and Functional Analysis.

Philip Scalisi is the former chair and graduate school coordinator in the Mathematics department. He is a member of the MAA, HOMSIGM, NCTM, and Pi Mu Epsilon. Professor Scalisi frequently participates in the MAA Math Study Tours. He often lectures in the History of Mathematics.

Professor Scalisi teaches both graduate and undergraduate level History of Mathematics and all Analysis courses. His scholarship interests are in history of mathematics and mineralogical crystallography.

Uma Shama has been teaching in the department of Mathematics and Computer Science since 1987 at Bridgewater State University. She mainly teaches mathematics courses from freshman to graduate level but has also taught directed study and independent research courses to undergraduate and graduate computer science students. Professor Shama has taught freshman seminar and first year seminar courses. Through GeoGraphics Laboratory, she has offered training workshops to practitioners in using geographic information system and spatial analysis in improving access to transportation. Bridgewater State University has revitalized the honors program and has actively introduced undergraduate research. To connect the Core Curriculum with each major, students are required to complete one writing intensive course in their major. In response to these changes, Dr. Shama has regularly taught a course in Applied Mathematics as writing intensive in the major. She has also taught graduate level research based writing intensive courses. When students show interest to learn more, she has always accommodated their needs by offering directed and independent study courses above and beyond her regular load.

ADVISING: Dr. Shama advises more than forty undergraduate and graduate students who major in mathematics and computer science. She has advised new students during freshman and transfer student orientation regularly. She also mentors students in their career paths as well as planning for advance degree programs.

STUDENT THESES AND PROJECTS: In the last seven years, she has directed two undergraduate honors theses, four undergraduate Adrian Tinsley Summer Projects and six masters projects in both mathematics and computer science.

COURSE DEVELOPMENT: Dr. Shama has been actively developing seminar courses, new courses to fill the needs in both mathematics and computer science programs at both undergraduate and graduate level. She worked with colleagues in modifying Calculus courses for mathematics majors and mathematics courses for elementary education majors. She participated in the CONNECT workshop in aligning courses for transferring among University of Massachusetts, community colleges, and Bridgewater State University. She also worked on creating a one-credit problem solving course as part of the E and T sections for some of the basic mathematics courses in the department. As part of the STREAMS course development, Dr. Shama developed Problem Solving courses that have become corequisite with a Calculus I course. Elements of Calculus courses were required for management science majors until a separate one semester applied calculus was introduced. She has worked on modifying the Elements of Calculus courses as the students in these courses are mainly science majors.

HONORS AND AWARDS: In the last seven years, Dr. Shama received four awards. In 2007, she received the Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching, one of the highest recognitions for teaching at Bridgewater State University. In 2007, she also received Honors Outstanding Faculty Award that was initially recommended by students of Bridgewater State University. In 2009, she received the Martha D. Jones Outstanding Dedication to Students Award from the Bridgewater State University Alumni Association. In 2010, she received Bridgewater State Lifetime Faculty Research Award, the highest award that one can receive at Bridgewater. Since 2008, she was honored to serve as the University Marshal. Dr. Shama feels truly blessed to have been working at Bridgewater State University for the last twenty-six years and to have her work recognized with various awards.

COMMITTEE WORK: Dr. Shama has served in several committees within the department as well as college-wide. She served as treasurer of an international organization, Natural Philosophy Alliance. College-wide she has served on Honorary Degree Advisory Committee, Asian Studies Program, Campus Climate Action Group, Honors Program, Undergraduate Research Program, Executive Committee of MSCA, Bridgewater Chapter and HERS Bridgewater Chapter. In the mathematics department, Dr. Shama has served on graduate committee, undergraduate curriculum committee and search committee. She also serves as course coordinator of several courses on a regular basis.

SCHOLARSHIP: Dr. Shama's PhD thesis topic was "The Transformation Equations of Electromagnetic Field Vectors in Accelerated Systems"

GRANTS: In the last seven years during review period 2006-2013, Dr. Shama has been involved in eleven externally funded grants and one internally funded grant. She has been able to hire and train many undergraduate and graduate students on these externally funded projects. This has helped students who have worked in the GeoGraphics Laboratory to find full-time employment when they graduate from Bridgewater State University. She has actively served on the Project Compass grant. This work was especially fulfilling to her as it addressed the issues about improving student success at Bridgewater for all our students, in particular for underserved students.

PUBLICATIONS: In the last seven years, Dr. Shama co-authored ten publications and ten technical reports as part of externally funded grants. Her research fields include Geographic Informations systems, mobility management technology research in transportation, intelligent transportation systems, and electrodynamics.

PRESENTATIONS: Dr. Shama has been invited to present her research work at national and international conferences every year. She has also regularly presented project results to the funding agencies.