Spring 2006

This semester we are pleased to have Dr. David Billington and Dr. Steve Cunningham as Noyce Visiting Professors, and Judith Brown as a Noyce Distinguished Visitor.

David Billington
Noyce Visiting Professor

Bridges, Towers and Skyscrapers Spiced up with a Visit by Noyce Professor David Billington

David Billington, the author of the two main texts for the course, was on the Grinnell College campus for a couple of weeks during the semester. The February 10 - April 16, 2006, exhibition The Art of Structural Design: A Swiss Legacy at the Faulconer Gallery was developed by Professor Billington and was presented in conjunction with the course. This was a rare opportunity to take a popular course enriched with lectures by Professor Billington and a major exhibition.

The following biography was adapted from NSF Event, June 3, 2003 Program.
Professor Billington has been a member of the Princeton University for over 40 years. His textbook Thin Shell Concrete Structures has become the standard text on the subject and was reissued as one of twenty-five Classic Text Reprints by McGraw-Hill. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Belgium (1950-51). For his scholarship in the history of technology he has won the Dexter Prize (1979) from the Society for the History of Technology and the Usher Prize (1995) for the Best Scholarly Work. He holds three honorary degrees (including one from Grinnell College), and has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (1986) ane the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998).
Professor Billington has developed several introductory courses studying the major engineering innovations that have transformed the modern United States. He has published several books to support these courses: Robert Maillart's Bridges, The Tower and the Bridge, and The Innovator: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern. In 1999 the Engineering News Record identified Professor Billington as one of the "top 125 people for their outstanding contributions to the construction industry since 1874" - he was one of the five educators named and the only one still teaching. He has many teaching and education awards including the Carnegie Foundation's New Jersey State Professor of the Year Award (1995), the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Acheivement in Education (1990), Educator of the Year by the Consulting Engineers Council of New Jersey (1998), Educator of the Year by the Central New Jersey Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (1997), Princeton's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching (1996), and the Princeton's Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Teaching (1988 and 1992).

Physics 180.01 - Bridges, Towers, and Skyscrapers (Reg #: 59610)
MWF 2:15 - 3:05 in Noyce Science Center #1023
Course Description: An investigation of large man-made structures (e.g., Brooklyn Bridge, Eiffel Tower, and Hancock Tower/Chicago), considering structural, social, and aesthetic aspects. The relationship between a structure's form and its function is examined. Concepts from physics necessary for the quantitative analysis are presented. Case. Prerequisite: MAT 124 or MAT 131. 4 credits.

Judith Brown
Noyce Distinguished Visitor

Judy Brown worked with computer graphics educational and research applications for many years at The University of Iowa, where she consulted on computer graphics and visualization at Weeg Computing Center and taught computer graphics in the Division of Instructional Design and Technology in the Department of Education. She has given invited talks on visualization throughout the world and is senior author of a book and CD-ROM on visualization. She is a Past President of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading professional organization for computer graphics and interactive techniques, and received the ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award in 2004. She is a Fellow of Eurographics (the European Computer graphics Society) and a member of the Eurographics Education Board. She is an invited member of the Academic Committee of the State Key Lab of CAD and Computer Graphics in Hangzhou, China, and the International Advisory Committee for the National Visualization Center in São Paulo, Brazil.

She has been a long-time proponent of interdisciplinary work and of the importance of visualization for both research and education. She built a respected and heavily utilized visualization lab at The University of Iowa, and for her last ten years at Iowa, she managed the Advanced Research Computing Services. ARCS provided support for faculty interested in visualization or virtual reality applications for their teaching and research. She retired from The University of Iowa in 2000. At the time of her visit to Grinnell, she was currently finishing an NSF grant on Visual Learning in Science and Engineering, and co-chairing international conferences on virtual reality, "edutainment," and computer graphics education

Judy Brown was on the Grinnell campus as a Distinguished Noyce Visitor Tuesday mornings through Thursday afternoons each week this semester to consult with Grinnell faculty and staff on visualization of data and concepts for education and research. In the 70s and 80s, Judy visited Grinnell often as Director of the Regional Computing Center, the consortium of Iowa colleges and universities that were networked to shared computers. Prior to retirement, she managed the Advanced Research Computing Services at The University of Iowa, supporting visualization needs campus-wide. 

Steve Cunningham
Noyce Visiting Professor

Computer Graphics for Science by Noyce Visiting Professor Steve Cunningham.

Professor Cunningham has had a 40-year career of teaching, scholarship, and professional service. Initially a mathematician, with an undergraduate degree from Drury College and graduate degrees from the University of Oregon, he moved to computer science in the early 1980s with a graduate degree from Oregon State. He taught mathematics at the University of Kansas, taught math and later computer science at Birmingham-Southern College, and taught computer science at California State University Stanislaus, where he was a Gemperle Distinguished Professor and received an award for his scholarship. He was a Visiting Scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and most recently was a program officer with the National Science Foundation.

He has served with several professional associations, including the Mathematics Association of America and ACM SIGCSE, was on the Executive Board and Executive Committee of the European Association for Computer Graphics, and held several offices in ACM SIGGRAPH including Director for Publications and Chair. He was elected a Fellow of Eurographics and received the ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award.

Professor Cunningham's professional focus has been computer graphics, especially computer graphics education. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of six books dealing with computer graphics-related topics, especially computer graphics for education. He has extensive international speaking experience and has been involved in a number of conferences, most particularly with a series of workshops on computer graphics education.

Computer Science 295.01 - SpTp: Computer Graphics for Science (Reg #60066)
TTH 10:00 - 10:50 and W 3:15 - 4:05 in Noyce Science Center #2428
Course Description: This course is an introduction to computer graphics, emphasizing graphics programming using OpenGL, graphical problem solving, and effective visual communication. Projects in the course will focus on the use of computer graphics in the sciences and mathematics, with an opportunity for students to determine the areas for their projects. The course will cover the primary components of image synthesis, including geometry and modeling, viewing, lighting, shading, animation, and texture mapping, as well as fundamentals of interaction such as events, callbacks, and object selection. Prerequisite: CSC 152 or CSC 153 or Programming Experience. 4 credits.