Matthew T. Dickerson is an American academic working as a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

.Faculty profile
at Middlebury College, retrieved 2009-11-19. A scholar of J. R. R. Tolkien's literary work and the

Inklings The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis at the University of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who pra ...

, Dickerson is by his own account a novelist, newspaper columnist, blues musician, historian of music,

fly fisherman Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly diffe ...

, maple sugar farmer, and beekeeper.

Education

Dickerson received an A.B. from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 1985 and a Ph.D. in computer science from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, under the supervision of

Dexter Kozen Dexter Campbell Kozen (born December 20, 1951) is an American theoretical computer scientist. He is Joseph Newton Pew, Jr. Professor in Engineering at Cornell University. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1974 and his PhD in compute ...

, in 1989. His Ph.D. research was in

symbolic computation In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions ...

, but since then he has worked primarily in

computational geometry Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems ar ...

; his most frequently cited computer science papers concern ''k''-nearest neighbors algorithm and minimum-weight triangulation. Dickerson has been on the Middlebury faculty since receiving his Ph.D.Biography
as an invited speaker at the 19th Annual Fall Workshop on Computational Geometry, Tufts University, 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-18.

Career

From 1997 to 2001, Dickerson published a biweekly column on fishing and the outdoors in the ''Addison Independent'', a local newspaper. Since 2002, he has been the director of the New England Young Writers Conference,Biography
as a featured speaker at the Fall 2009 Houghton College Writing Festival. Retrieved 2009-11-18. an annual four-day conference for high school students in

Bread Loaf, Vermont Bread Loaf is an unincorporated community within the town of Ripton in Addison County, Vermont, United States. The community is on the west flank of Bread Loaf Mountain. The community formerly had a post office. The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference ...

, that is associated with Middlebury College. He is also the founding director of the Vermont Conference on Christianity and the Arts. He plays bass in a Vermont-based blues band, Deep Freyed.

Tolkien scholarship

Dickerson is the author of six non-technical books, most of them about

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

fiction. His 2003 book ''Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'', a study of the moral and Christian values expressed by Tolkien's works, highlights the contrasts between moral and physical victories, and between heroism and violence; it points out the necessity of having free will in order to make moral choices. It was shortlisted for the

Mythopoeic Society The Mythopoeic Society (MythSoc) is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis, all members of The Inklings, an informal group of write ...

's 2004 and 2005 Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards. He has written a pair of books on Tolkien,

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

, and

environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...

, ''Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien''Reviews of 'Ents, Elves, and Eriador'': Review by Patrick Curry (2007), ''Tolkien Studies'' 4: 238–244, ; Review by Susan Palwick (2008), ''Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment'' 15 (1): 266–268, . and ''Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis''. Despite giving the first of these two books an overall negative review, reviewer Patrick Curry writes that it is "a major new contribution to the subject of Tolkien's work".

Other books

His other books include ''The Finnsburg Encounter''. a work of historical fiction, translated into German as ''Licht uber Friesland'', ''Hammers and Nails: The Life and Music of Mark Heard'', a biography of musician

Mark Heard John Mark Heard III (December 16, 1951 – August 16, 1992) was an American record producer, folk rock singer and songwriter from Macon, Georgia. Heard released sixteen albums, and produced or performed with many artists, including: Sam Phil ...

, and ''From Homer to Harry Potter: A Handbook on Myth and Fantasy''.Review of ''From Homer to Harry Potter''
Review by Gregory Hartley
(2007), ''Christianity and Literature''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickerson, Matthew T. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists Dartmouth College alumni Cornell University alumni Middlebury College faculty Researchers in geometric algorithms Tolkien studies