Kathleen Madden facts for kids
Kathleen Marie Madden is an American mathematician. She studies how things change over time, which is called dynamical systems. She used to be a leader (dean) at California State University, Bakersfield. She also won a special award called the George Pólya Award and helped write a book named Discovering Discrete Dynamical Systems.
Her Journey in Math
Kathleen Madden first studied math at the University of Colorado. After that, she joined the Peace Corps. For two years, she taught math in Cameroon, a country in Africa.
Later, she continued her studies and earned her Ph.D. in 1994. This advanced degree came from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her special research project was about "Exotic Cocycles."
Before working at California State University, Bakersfield, she taught math at other colleges. She was a professor at Lafayette College. Then she taught at Drew University. At Drew, she also led the math department for a while.
In 2015, she became an associate dean at California State University, Bakersfield. She was promoted to interim dean in 2016. In 2017, she became the permanent dean. She held this important role until 2021. After that, she started working part-time as a professor.
Awards and Books
In 1998, Kathleen Madden and her colleague Aimee Johnson won a special honor. They received the George Pólya Award. They earned it for their paper about "aperiodic tiling." This paper helped people understand how to fit shapes together in patterns that never repeat.
In 2017, Madden, Johnson, and Ayşe Şahin wrote a textbook together. The book is called Discovering Discrete Dynamical Systems. It was published by the Mathematical Association of America.
