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Welcome New Faculty
The Department of Mathematics & Statistics has grown a lot in recent years, and this year is no exception. Who are all these new faces and from whence did they come? Explore below. And join us in extending a heartfelt "welcome" when next you see them.
Emily Peters
Dr. Peters earned a Ph.D. degree in mathematics in 2009 from the University of California at Berkeley where she worked with the distinguished mathematician and Fields Medal laureate Vaughan Jones. Her research is in subfactors, planar algebras, and knot theory.
Her mathematical hobby is teaching geometric topics (polyhedra and polytopes, decomposition problems, Archimedian geometry, etc.) in math circles and summer programs. Before joining the faculty at Loyola as Assistant Professor, she worked at the University of New Hampshire, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and most recently was a Boas Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Northwestern University.
John Houlihan
John Houlihan received his B.A. in Classics, with Honors, from Loyola University Chicago, his M.A. in Theology from University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, Ontario, his J.D. from Duke University and his M.S. in Computer Science from University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He has taught at Loyola off and on since 1994, and this year joins the faculty at Loyola as Lecturer on a three-year appointment. Before joining Loyola he worked as Network Administrator at St Joseph Seminary and was a partner of a startup telephone company during the heady dot.com days.
Matthew Bourque
After receiving his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College in 1998, Dr. Bourque taught in the Teach for America in the Mississippi delta area. Before joining the faculty at Loyola as Lecturer on a one-year appointment, he was hard at work on his Ph.D., completing it in July 2013 from UIC. Dr. Bourque's specialty is game theory.
During his time at UIC, Dr. Bourque was also involved with UIC's ASCEND program which assists incoming freshmen students prepare for the transition from high school to university mathematics. He led intensive summer courses for entering freshmen students in this program, and he acted as the sole instructor for his group. He also became involved in the Emerging Scholars Program which is charged with increasing retention rates for underrepresented groups intending to pursue careers in the STEM disciplines.
Ward Canfield
Dr. Canfield holds a B.A. in mathematics from Washburn University, an M.S. in mathematics from Michigan State University, and a D.A. in mathematics from University of Illinois, Chicago. Before joining faculty at Loyola as Lecturer on a one-year appointment, he taught for many years at National Louis University and one year as visiting professor to Yanbian University of Science and Technology in Yanji, China. He has worked extensively on curriculum, learning standards, and teacher preparation in K-12 mathematics both regionally and nationally.
His research interests are primarily in K-12 mathematics education issues in teacher preparation, learning standards, international comparisons in mathematics education, in particular the Korean mathematics education system, and in college quantitative literacy. He is also interested in uses of computer technologies in learning mathematics.
Michael Perry
Dr. Perry earned a BS in Teaching Mathematics from Marquette University in 1991, an MS in Applied Mathematics from the University of Akron in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University in 2003. He has an extensive teaching background teaching at the high school, community college, online college and university levels. He has taught courses in Algebra, Calculus, Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Test Preparation.
Prior to joining the Loyola faculty as Lecturer on a one-year appointment, Dr. Perry spent 13 years working for Okoboji Options, writing and testing computer code for option trading strategies as well as implementing these strategies.
