A photo of me

Cody L. Patterson
Assistant Director, Institute for Mathematics & Education
Gould-Simpson 831
Department of Mathematics
The University of Arizona

e-mail: cpatterson (shift-2) math (dot) arizona (dot) edu

Greetings!  Welcome to my homepage.  Here you can find information about projects I'm working on, classes I'm teaching, math competitions and camps for K-12 students, and other assorted goodies for the wandering mathophile.

If you want to find out about classes I'm teaching, click here.
If you want to find out about my research, click here.
If you want to find out about contests and camps for young math enthusiasts, click here.
If you are bored and want to leave, click here.

Teaching

This summer, I am teaching Math 505D, Data Analysis and Probability for K-8 Teachers.  My personal home page for the course is here.

Past Courses

Math 315, Introduction to Number Theory and Modern Algebra (Spring 2013)
Math 196V, Vector Calculus Supplemental Instruction Seminar (Spring 2013)
Math 223, Vector Calculus (Fall 2012)
Math 196N, Calculus II Supplemental Instruction Seminar (Fall 2012)
Math 315, Introduction to Number Theory and Modern Algebra (Spring 2012)
Math 223, Vector Calculus (Fall 2011)
Math 129, Calculus II (Spring 2011)
Math 505F, Geometry and Measurement for K-8 Teachers (Spring 2011)
Math 124, Calculus I With Applications (Fall 2010)

Research

I am interested in geometric group theory; in particular, I enjoy playing around with Coxeter groups and their cousins (e.g., Artin groups).  My Ph.D. thesis "Fixed-Point-Free Actions of Coxeter Groups on Three-Dimensional CAT(0) Cell Complexes" is available by request; e-mail me if you want a copy.  My thesis advisor is Daniel Allcock of The University of Texas at Austin.

Here you can find an extensive list of geometric group theorists maintained by Jon McCammond.

I am also interested in finding effective ways to teach mathematics, especially to the following groups of people:


Contests and Camps

(More content coming soon.  If you are a math student in grades K-12 or have a child in grades K-12 who wants an extra challenge in mathematics, please e-mail me for info.)


Links

Here are some online destinations I visit often:

Google: Now serving over 1 billion people, and surveilling over 7 billion.

For the latest in math, I keep one eye on MathSciNet (membership required) and the other on arXiv (free for all).

For news, I used to use CNN.com.  Now that CNN.com is a useless slurry of opinion columns, entertainment news (i.e., gossip), YouTube videos, and relationship advice (seriously), I use BBC instead.

I still get my sports fix at ESPN.com.

If I made a joke in class that you didn't get, you may need to brush up on internet memes at Know Your Meme.

How many isomorphism classes of TV sitcoms are there, really?  Probably fewer than you think; see tvtropes.org.

Everything costs more these days.  But we can still get random numbers for free, thanks to RANDOM.ORG.

Reddit: Where spare time goes to die.  Some content NSFW; consider yourself warned.