Doug Peterson Joins Wooster Math Faculty
Jeff Mansell

      Doug Peterson is joining the faculty of Taylor Hall's math department for the 1998-1999 academic year. Dr. Peterson has a half-time teaching position at the College of Wooster, and he is on sabbatical from his position as associate professor at Hood College. This semester, he is teaching Matrix Algebra and Probability and next semester he will be instructing students in two sections of a computer science course. Graph theory is the main focus of Dr. Peterson's work. This field developed during the Second World War as a means to more effectively combat enemy railways. Peterson adds that his work is "not applicable to anything that I know of. But I'm not ashamed to say that." He added, "practical uses are overrated."

      His degrees come from SUNY Neu Paltz, the University of Washington, and Texas A&M, so he has seen much of the nation, but math has driven Peterson more than location. He asserts that his field chose him instead of the other way around. Since a young age, he has had an interest in math. As he put it, it was "not a choice. I just did it." Why did he choose his specific field? It's very understandable, he says. For this reason, he is giving a colloquium presentation of his work on November 5, to which all are invited. Take his words for it, "almost anybody can understand what I'm doing." It's just difficult to actually do it.

      Dr. Peterson calls Wooster's math department "great" and he is very impressed with the slide rule trophy on the third floor. He has proven himself very much at home in Taylor Hall, joining a closely knit group of people devoted to the divine field of mathematics.