Silvia Heubach is a German-American mathematician specializing in
enumerative combinatorics
Enumerative combinatorics is an area of combinatorics that deals with the number of ways that certain patterns can be formed. Two examples of this type of problem are counting combinations and counting permutations. More generally, given an infin ...
,
combinatorial game theory
Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study has been largely confined to two-player games that have a ''position'' that the players ...
, and
bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
. She is a professor of mathematics at
California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...
.
Education and career
Heubach earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics and economics from the
University of Ulm
Ulm University (german: Universität Ulm) is a public university in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1967 and focuses on natural sciences, medicine, engineering sciences, mathematics, economics and computer sci ...
in 1983 and 1986, respectively. Through a program at the University of Ulm, she came to the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
(USC) for a one-year exchange, but decided to stay on for a Ph.D. program. She completed a master's degree in mathematics in 1988 and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at USC in 1992. Her dissertation, ''A Stochastic Model for the Movement of a White Blood Cell'', was supervised by Joseph C. Watkins..
After completing her doctorate, Heubach held visiting faculty positions at
Colorado College
Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its campus. The college offer ...
and
Humboldt State University
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt also known as Cal Poly Humboldt, Humboldt or Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California or California State Polytechnic Universi ...
before joining the faculty at California State University, Los Angeles in 1994.
Contributions
Heubach is the co-author of the book ''Combinatorics of Compositions and Words'' (with
Toufik Mansour, CRC Press, 2009). She is a contributor to a text in bioinformatics, "Concepts in Bioinformatics and Genomics" by Jamil Momand and Alison McCurdy, Oxford University Press, 2016.
Her research in
combinatorial game theory
Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study has been largely confined to two-player games that have a ''position'' that the players ...
has also included analysis of a variant of
nim in which piles of pebbles are placed on the edges of a
tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...
and each move removes at least one pebble from the set of edges incident to a single triangle of the tetrahedron.
Recognition
In 2018, Heubach won the California State University system's Faculty Innovation and Leadership Award, becoming the first professor at the Los Angeles campus of the system to be so honored. The award honored her educational initiatives including developing a new sequence of mathematics courses for life sciences students, developing
flipped classroom
A flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning, which aims to increase student engagement and learning by having pupils complete readings at home and work on live problem-solving during class time. This pedagogic ...
mathematics courses, and improving statistics courses used to fulfill
general education
General Education is a 2012 comedy film, directed by Tom Morris, starring Chris Sheffield, Maiara Walsh, Elaine Hendrix, Bobby Campo, Janeane Garofalo and Larry Miller and produced by Pelican House Productions. The film was shot in Chico and G ...
requirements.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Heubach, Silvia
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
20th-century German mathematicians
German women mathematicians
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
American women mathematicians
Combinatorialists
University of Ulm alumni
University of Southern California alumni
Colorado College faculty
Humboldt State University faculty
California State University, Los Angeles faculty
20th-century American women
21st-century American women
20th-century German women