Patricia Frazer Lock (born 1953) is an American mathematician, mathematics educator, statistician, statistics educator, and textbook author whose research interests include

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

s and

quantum logic In the mathematical study of logic and the physical analysis of quantum foundations, quantum logic is a set of rules for manipulation of propositions inspired by the structure of quantum theory. The field takes as its starting point an observat ...

. She is the Cummings Professor of Mathematics at St. Lawrence University.

Education and career

Lock is the daughter of J. Ronald Frazer, a hockey player and business school professor at

Clarkson University Clarkson University is a private research university with its main campus in Potsdam, New York, and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region and Beacon, New York. It was founded in 1896 and has an enr ...

. She graduated from

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...

in 1975, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and went on to graduate study at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

where she earned a master's degree in 1978 and completed her Ph.D. in 1981. Her dissertation, ''Categories of Manuals'', was supervised by David J. Foulis. After working for a term as an instructor at the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

, she joined St. Lawrence University in 1981. She became full professor in 1994 and Cummings Professor in 2002. She has served the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

as chair of its Special Interest Group on Statistics Education for 2015–2016.

Books

With

Deborah Hughes Hallett Deborah J. Hughes Hallett is a mathematician who works as a professor of mathematics at the University of Arizona. Her expertise is in the undergraduate teaching of mathematics. She has also taught as Professor of the Practice in the Teaching of M ...

Andrew M. Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

, and others, Lock is one of the co-authors of the Harvard Calculus Consortium series of textbooks. She is also a co-author with her husband and three children, all professional mathematicians and statisticians, of a statistics textbook, ''Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data''.

Recognition

In 2016 the Seaway Section of the Mathematical Association of America gave Lock their Clarence Stephens Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2017 Lock won the Dexter C. Whittinghill III Award of the Mathematical Association of America Special Interest Group on Statistics Education for her work on incorporating visualizations of big data into introductory statistics courses.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lock, Patti Frazer Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American mathematics educators American statisticians American women statisticians Statistics educators Colgate University alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni United States Naval Academy faculty St. Lawrence University faculty 1953 births 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians