Susan Renee Loepp (born 1967) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who works as a professor of mathematics at

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

. Her research concerns

commutative algebra Commutative algebra, first known as ideal theory, is the branch of algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra. Prominent ...

Professional career

Loepp graduated from

Bethel College (Kansas) Bethel College is a private Christian college in North Newton, Kansas. It is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. History Bethel College, founded in 1887, is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel College became the second inst ...

in 1989,Susan Loepp
The National Alliance for Doctoral Studies in the Mathematical Sciences, retrieved 2014-12-25. and earned her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 1994 from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, under the supervision of Raymond Heitmann. After postdoctoral studies at the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

she took her present faculty position at Williams. She has publications in

Journal of Algebra ''Journal of Algebra'' (ISSN 0021-8693) is an international mathematical research journal in algebra. An imprint of Academic Press, it is published by Elsevier. ''Journal of Algebra'' was founded by Graham Higman, who was its editor from 1964 to 1 ...

and

Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra The ''Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering that part of algebra likely to be of general mathematical interest: algebraic results with immediate applications, and the development of algebraic t ...

Book

With

William Wootters William "Bill" Kent Wootters () is an American theoretical physicist, and one of the founders of the field of quantum information theory. In a 1982 joint paper with Wojciech H. Zurek, Wootters proved the no cloning theorem, at the same time as Den ...

, she is the co-author of the book ''Protecting Information: From Classical Error Correction to Quantum Cryptography'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006). The book covers topics in

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution ...

and

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

and the potential impacts of

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...

. These potential impacts include quantum computers which, if built, could crack our currently used public-key cryptosystems, and quantum cryptography which promises to provide an alternative to these cryptosystems.

Awards and honors

In 2007, Loepp won the Young Alumnus Award from Bethel College. In 2010, she won the Northeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America’s Teaching Award. In 2012, she won the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics of 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 ...

, which honors “college or university teachers who have been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their own institutions.”Susan Loepp Wins National Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics
Williams College, January 27, 2012, retrieved 2014-12-25. In 2013, she was elected as one of the inaugural

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

s of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2014-12-25.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loepp, Susan Renee 1967 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Bethel College (Kansas) alumni University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni Williams College faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women