Robert R. Miner

Robert R. Miner

Title: Technical Researcher
Dates: August 1995 -- present
Office: Geometry Center, Room 537
Phone: (612) 626-8313
E-mail: rminer@geom.umn.edu
Personal Home page: http://www.geom.umn.edu/~rminer/

Activities at the Geometry Center

As a member of the technical staff, Robert is involved in many aspects of the functioning of the Center, including electronic communication research and software development, curriculum development, visitor and workshop support, and systems administration. Among his accomplishments during the last year:

WebEQ development team leader. WebEQ is a Java typesetting applet for including mathematical notation in web pages. A WebEQ prototype, released in spring of 1996, was identified by Java World as one of six most noteworthy applets on the web. It was also selected for the Best of Gamelan, and rated in the top 5% of all applets by the Java Applet Rating Service.
Robert is also a member of the W3 Consortium HTML Math External Review Board, a group constituted to study the problem of adding math notation extensions to HTML. In conjunction with this work, WebEQ is being adapted to serve as proof of concept reference code for a forthcoming HTML Math specification proposal.
Communicating Math with Hypertext Co-teacher and course designer. Miner, together with colleague Carol Scheftic, designed and taught a week-long course to graduate students, faculty and math professionals on leading edge techniques for scientific web site design, including animation, image processing, CGI scripts and Java.
University of Minnesota Calculus Initiative curriculum developer. Miner worked with colleague Frederick Wicklin on three interactive, web-based calculus labs. The labs are being integrated into U M's calculus sequence, and interest in them has been expressed by both publishers and other institutions.
1996 Summer Institute Team Leader. Miner directed two student teams during the Center's Summer Institute. One team began development of a web site devoted to hyperbolic geometry, and the other team began development of a Java port of the Center's premiere 3D graphics viewer Geomview.
Geometry Center Visitor Resources author. These web pages document the Center hardware and software together with instructions for their use. Although intended primarily for Center visitors and staff, much of the material contained there is general in nature, and can serve as a resource for the larger mathematical community.
1995 Mathematical Software Seminar organizer. The seminar aimed at exposing graduate students to the broad spectrum of technological tools at their disposal for mathematical research and teaching. Some seminars were archived in web form in an effort to make them available more widely.

Background

Miner has a long history with mathematics and visualization technology. Before coming to the Geometry Center, Miner worked on developing of graphics software for researchers at NIH, on visualization of real and complex hyperbolic space, quasi-conformal mappings, and on a variety of other mathematical subjects. During his four years at the University of Oklahoma, Miner played a leading role in revamping the calculus curriculum to include the use of graphing calculators, and other innovative uses of technology, and he was instrumental in creating the OU Math Department web site.

Education

Ph. D. 1991, University of Maryland
Thesis Advisor: William Goldman
Dissertation: Affine Manifolds with Dilation Structures

B.A. 1986, Reed College
Phi Beta Kappa

Professional Experience

Employment

1995 -- present, Technical Researcher
The Geometry Center
1991 -- 1995, Assistant Professor
University of Oklahoma
1992, Visitor
Universität Bern
1986 -- 1991, Graduate Fellow and Teaching Assistant
University of Maryland
1987 -- 1988, Computer Specialist
Math Research Branch, NIDDK, NIH

Fellowships and Grants

1994 -- NSF GRESE Research Grant, PI
1994 -- NSF SCREMS Grant, Co-PI
1994 -- DUE/EHR Calculus Improvement Grant, Co-PI
1994 -- OU Junior Faculty Research Fellowship
1993 -- OU Research Council Small Grant
1992 -- NSF International Programs Fellowship

Publications

Spherical CR manifolds with amenable holonomy, International J. Math. 3 (1990), pp. 291-308.
Quasiconformal equivalence of spherical CR manifolds, Acad. Sci. Fini. 19 (1994) pp. 83-93.
Transverse curves and chain curvature in the Heisenberg group, to be published J. Geometric Analysis.
Discrete Groups of Complex Hyperbolic Motions, joint with A. Basmajian, submitted.

Talks

Calculus Reform Workshop, Oklahoma State University, 5/95
Calculus Reform Workshop, Oklahoma State University, 8/94
Colloquium, Universität Bern, 6/9
MAA Regional Meeting, Harding University, 4/94
Calculus Reform Workshop, Oklahoma State University, 2/94
AMS Special Session, University of Illinois, 5/93
Geometry Seminar, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 5/92
Colloquium, Universität Bern, 4/92
AMS AMA Special Session, Baltimore, 1/91
Colloquium, Oklahoma State University, 10/91
AMS Special Session, Univ. of Massachusettes, 10/91
Student Faculty Colloquium, University of Maryland, 10/89
Geometry Seminar, Imperial College, London, 5/89

Teaching Experience

Courses taught at the University of Oklahoma 1991 -- 1994:

Differential geometry I & II, modern geometry, college algebra, first, second and third semester calculus, honors calculus, Topology I & II.

Courses taught elsewhere 1989 -- 1991:

Abstract algebra, first and second semester calculus, math appreciation for non-majors

Other Activities

ICTCM delegate, fall 1993
NSF Calculus Reform Workshop, summer 1993
Calculus TA training organizer, 1993-4

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Created: Nov 29 1995 --- Last modified: Fri Sep 20 17:03:40 1996