Archives

Jandelyn Dawn Plane

• Ph.D. from University of Maryland-College Park
• M.S. from UW-Milwaukee
• B.A. from Wartburg College

I recently retired as a computer science faculty member at the University of Maryland College Park where I had been since 1989. I moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and now live just outside Ripon with my mother, husband and son. With graduate degrees in both computer science and education, I focus on computer science curriculum, pedagogical methods and underrepresented populations in computing. For 15 years early in my career, I worked on State Department-funded projects building computing degree programs at universities in sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan. After that, I became the founding director of two centers (Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) and Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC)) both of which emphasize improving diversity, equity and inclusion in the computing fields through K-12 outreach education, current student support and research.

Christina Othon

• Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• M.S., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• B.S., University of Iowa

Born and raised in Illinois, I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. I went to graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln earning a Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics. After that, I conducted research at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. on 3D tissue printing for regenerative medicine, and at Caltech investigating protein hydration dynamics, before beginning my own academic research career and teaching. My research now focuses on how liquid dynamics can modify and regulate biological processes. I have had a very diverse career that allowed me to work closely with researchers in other disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and medicine. This experience has informed my teaching and mentoring of undergraduate research students. I aim to demonstrate to students in other majors, how physics can inform topics in their own disciplines.

Brett Barwick

• Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• M.S., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• B.S., Doane College

I received my undergraduate degree in Physics in 2002 at Doane College in Crete, NE, which is a school very similar to Ripon. After graduating I continued studying physics and received my Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2007. After completing my Ph.D. I joined the group of Nobel prize winner Prof. Ahmed Zewail at Caltech as a postdoctoral researcher where I worked on developing ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM) techniques. Over the last 10 years or so that I have been a professor, I have taught most courses that are offered at the undergraduate level, with one of my favorites being Quantum Mechanics. Outside the classroom I strive to create opportunities for students and have worked with ~30 paid undergraduate summer researchers on a variety of projects. My research primarily focuses on studying the fundamental quantum properties of electrons/light interactions.

Patrick Willoughby

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• B.S., University of Northern Iowa

I am an Associate Professor of Chemistry with a particular focus on organic synthesis. I teach Organic Chemistry courses along with Catalyst 120. I enjoy mentoring research students in the development of new methods for the synthesis of pharmaceutically-relevant molecules.

David W. Scott

• M.A. in Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• B.A. in Mathematics, Pomona College

The son of a Ripon College chemistry professor and associated with the college since 1962, I’ve worked with students since 1980. I served as men’s soccer coach from 1980-1995, left that when I was Director of Coaching Education for the Wisconsin Soccer Association to be assistant coach for 25 years at Marian University, and have now returned as assistant coach here. However, I began teaching part-time in the math department in 1982 and have taught full-time since 1984. In addition, for more than 20 years I have taught a fencing course for the college. I have also played trombone many semesters in the college jazz ensemble or the college orchestra.

For much of my time here our department had a philosophy that we should all be able to teach essentially any of the courses we offer in mathematics, and I have taught all of them multiple times with only a couple of exceptions. I have also taught a large number of courses in computer science over the years, developing our first courses in artificial intelligence and algorithms, as well as teaching programming in a variety of languages. I particularly like teaching courses in discrete math, algebraic structures, and geometry and topology (my area of study in graduate school), but I always teach the course in secondary teaching methods. I have great interest in education, and have served for 20 years on the Ripon school board. I am especially interested in students who want to be teachers at any level.

Colleen Byron

• Ph.D., analytical chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• B.A., chemistry, College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota