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.

Bryan Nell

• Ph.D. from University of Oregon
• B.A. from Ripon College

I grew up in St. Germain, Wisconsin, and graduated from Ripon with a degree in chemistry in 2009. I earned my Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Oregon in Eugene in 2014. My dissertation research focused on the synthesis of tetraphosphine macrocycles and their corresponding coordination chemistry, mostly focused on iron. I taught general chemistry and organic chemistry at the university and classes at a community college and Oregon State University. In 2016, I started a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Rebecca Abergel at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, preparing sulfur-based analogs of the HOPO-type molecules that are well known to capture radionuclei. I then was an assistant professor in chemistry at the University of Minnesota Morris, before returning to teach at Ripon College. I enjoy golf, woodworking projects and being outside with my wife, daughter and pups.

Erin C. Munro Krull

• Ph.D., Tufts University
• M.A., Tufts University
• B.A., Connecticut College

I started teaching at Ripon College in 2019, joining the math and computer science department with a specialty in applied mathematics. At Ripon, my teaching focuses on mathematical modeling (including modeling within courses like calculus), statistics and data analysis. I have also been able to do both modeling and research projects with senior math majors as part of their senior thesis.

Before coming to Ripon, I taught at Beloit College, and did research in computational neuroscience in Tokyo and Boston. My research includes action potential propagation across gap junctions (with applications to epilepsy), and neocortical processing during sleep. I use both mathematical modeling and data analysis extensively in my research.

While I was always drawn to math because I always loved puzzles, I also love music because I love to sing. While in college, I wanted to become an opera singer, and studied many languages and theater along that goal. I still sing, on occasion, and am always up for a puzzle or a game!

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