Alligood, Kathleen T.

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Alligood, Kathleen T.

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: George Washington University, B.A., 1970; University of Maryland, M.S., 1974, Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES:

Office—George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., MS: 3F2, Science & Tech. I, Rm. 237, Fairfax, VA 22030.E-mail—alligood@gmu.edu.

CAREER:

Mathematician, educator, and author. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, professor of mathematics.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 1997, for Chaos: An Introduction to Dynamical Systems.

WRITINGS:

(With Tim D. Sauer and James A. Yorke) Chaos: An Introduction to Dynamical Systems, Springer (New York, NY), 1997.

Contributor to books, includingChaos and Fractals: The Mathematics behind the Computer Graphics, edited by Robert L. Devaney and Linda Keen, American Mathematical Society (Providence, RI), 1989; and Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems, 2002. Contributor to scholarly journals, including Physical Review Letters and Physica D.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kathleen T. Alligood is a mathematician whose academic interests focus onnonlinear dynamics and topology, with an emphasis on global bifurcations andchaos theory. She is also the author, with Tim D. Sauer and James A. Yorke, ofChaos: An Introduction to Dynamical Systems. The book's initial chapters discuss the basic concepts associated with the iteration of one-dimensional and two-dimensional maps. The following chapters focus specifically on chaos and nonlinear equations; other topics discussed include discrete mapping and bifurcation. Writing in Mathematical Reviews, Frederick R. Marotto commented: "With regard to both style and content, the authors succeed in introducing junior/senior undergraduate students to the dynamics and analytical techniques associated with nonlinear systems, especially those related to chaos." Marotto went on to write: "In short, the book is a significant contribution to the increasing collection of texts on this topic. The authors have succeeded in taking the most important ideas from dynamical systems and chaos, and presenting them to undergraduates in a serious but accessible manner." J.A. Rial commented in American Scientistthat the book "is by far the most complete introduction to chaos theoryavailable in a single text." The critic added: "In general the prose is clear, and the profuse illustrations help enormously." In a review in Physics Today, J.D. Crawford appreciated that "the book presents the mathematical theory with care."