David R. Berman

Professor of Computer Science

University of North Carolina Wilmington

 

Education

PhD, Mathematics, University of Texas Austin, 1978.

MA, Mathematics, University of California Berkeley, 1973.

BA, Mathematics, University of Texas Austin, 1971.


Professional Experience

Professor, Computer Science Dept., University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2002-present.

Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept., University of North Carolina Wilmington, 1998-2002.

Associate Professor, Mathematical Sciences Dept., University of North Carolina Wilmington, 1997-98.

Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences Dept., University of North Carolina Wilmington, 1981-97.

Instructor, Mathematics Dept., University of Utah, 1978-81.

 

Research Interests

Combinatorial Designs and Tournaments

Theoretical Computer Science

Algebraic Geometry

 

Publications

Berman, D., Nested BIBDs from affine planes, Ars Combinatoria 72 (2004), 129-132.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Ranking whist players, Discrete Mathematics 283 (2004), 15-28.

Berman, D., Smith, D., Toward minimal violations rankings for whist tournaments, Congr. Numer. 162

    (2003), 65-74.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Generalized tournament designs, Congr. Numer. 142 (2000), 33-40.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Team tournaments, Congr. Numer., 137 (1999), 33-46.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Fairness in whist tournaments, Congr. Numer., 130 (1998), 189-198.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Additional results on fairness in spouse-avoiding mixed doubles

     round-robin tournaments, Congr. Numer., 123 (1997), 181-191.

Berman, D., McLaurin, S., Smith, D., Fairness in spouse-avoiding mixed doubles round-robin

     tournaments, Congr. Numer., 119 (1996), 65-72.

Berman, D., The number of generators of a colength N ideal in a power series ring, Journal of Algebra,

     73 (1981), 156-166.

Berman, D., Simplicity of a vector space of forms: finiteness of the number of complete Hilbert

     functions, Journal of Algebra, 45 (1977), 88-93.

 

Grant Funding

UNCW Summer Research Initiative, Combinatorial Design Theory, proposal for $3500, summer 2005.

Awarded an ACM Educator’s Scholarship to attend Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems,

     Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 2004), Vancouver, British Columbia, October 2004. Participated   

     in Educator’s Symposium and attended tutorials: Effective Interface Design and Efficient Implementation

     of Object-Oriented Programming Languages. Grant covered conference registration, tutorial, and $550

     for travel and lodging.

Co-Principal Investigator, Fostering Undergraduate Research Partnerships through a Graphical User  

    Environment for the North Carolina Computing Grid, with L. Bartolotii, R. Boston, J. Brown, C. Ferner,

    T. Hudson, T. Janicki, N. Martin, M. McClelland, J. Porter, A. Stapleton, R. Vetter, and A. Wilkinson,

    UNC Office of the President, proposal for $557,634, grant period: June 1, 2004-June 30, 2006.

Awarded an ACM Educator’s Scholarship to attend Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems,

    Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 2002), Seattle, Washington, November 2002. Participated in

    Educator’s Symposium and attended tutorial: Ruby in a Day. Grant covered conference registration,

     tutorial, and $1000 for travel and lodging.

Principal Investigator, Curriculum Development for Computer Science: Webwork, Teamwork, and Design

    Patterns, UNCW Center for Teaching Excellence Summer Teaching Initiative, proposal for $3,000, July-

    August 2001.

Principal Investigator, high performance computing, UNCW Information Technology Systems Division,

    proposal for $3,000 stipend and $1,500 for student assistance, May-August 2001.

Principal Investigator, high performance computing, UNCW Information Technology Systems Division,

    proposal for $3,000 stipend and $1,000 for student assistance, May-August 2000.

Principal Investigator, Computational Science Faculty Account award for 200 SGI Origin 2000 and 25 Cray

     T90 hours from the North Carolina Supercomputing Center for the proposal: Investigation of

     Combinatorial Designs, July 1997-June 1998. Renewed for July 1998-June1999, July 1999-June 2000,

     July 2000-June 2001, July 2001-2002, July 2002-2003.

Awarded an ACM Educators’ Scholarship to attend Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems,

     Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 2000), Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2000. Participated in

     Educators’ Symposium and attended tutorials on design patterns and Java GUIs. Grant  covered

     conference registration, two half-day tutorials, and $1000 for travel and lodging.

Attended 2000 ACM 14th International Conference on Supercomputing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 2000.

    Grant for $2500 from UNCW Information Technology Systems Division for registration, travel, and

     lodging.

UNCW Summer Curriculum Development Initiative: Curriculum Development for CSC 121 as a Large

    Lecture – Multiple Lab Course, proposal for $3000, summer 2000.

UNCW Summer Research Initiative, An Interactive and Collaborative Web Site for Combinatorial Designs

     Research, proposal for $3000, summer 1998.

Awarded an ACM Educator’s Scholarship to attend Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems,

     Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA ’98), Vancouver, British Columbia, October 1998. Participated   

     in Educator’s Symposium and attended tutorials: From C++ to Advanced Java in ½ Day, and

     Introduction to Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming in Java, and Scripting: Higher-Level

     Programming for Component-Based Systems. Grant covered conference registration, two half-day

     tutorials, and $1000 for travel and lodging.

 

Presentations

Some New Latin Triangles, 35th Southeastern Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Computing,

     Boca Raton, FL, March 2004.

Ranking Whist Players, 33rd Southeastern Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Computing,

     Boca Raton, FL, March 2002.

Generalized Tournament Designs, 31st Southeastern Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and

     Computing, Boca Raton, FL, March 2000.

Fairness in Spouse-Avoiding Mixed Doubles Round-Robin Tournaments, Mini-Conference on

     Combinatorics and Graph Theory, UNC Greensboro, NC, October 1997.

Fairness in Spouse-Avoiding Mixed Doubles Round-Robin Tournaments, 27th Southeastern Conference on

     Combinatorics, Graph Theory, and Computing, Baton Rouge, LA, February 1996.

Number of Generators of Ideals in Local Rings, Northeastern University Algebra and Combinatorics

     Seminar, Boston, MA, March 1984.

Simplicity of a Vector Space of Forms, Northwestern University Singularities Seminar, Evanston, IL, 1976.

 

Computer Science Courses Taught

CSC 105 – Introduction to Computing and Computer Applications

CSC 112 – Introduction to Computer Programming

CSC 121 – Introduction to Computer Science I

CSC 133 – Discrete Mathematics I

CSC 221 – Introduction to Computer Science II

CSC 233 – Discrete Mathematics II

CSC 332 – Data Structures

CSC 360 – Formal Languages and Computability I

CSC 434 – Programming Languages

CSC 460 – Formal Languages and Computability II

CSC 495 – Seminar in Computer Science

 

Mathematics Courses Taught

MAT 101 – College Mathematics for the General Student

MAT 111 – College Algebra

MAT 112 – Trigonometry

MAT 115 – Precalculus

MAT 151 – Basic Calculus with Applications

MAT 161 – Calculus with Analytic Geometry I

MAT 162 – Calculus with Analytic Geometry II

MAT 275 – Axiomatic Systems

MAT 335 – Linear Algebra and Matrices

MAT 336 – Introductory Modern Algebra I

MAT 375 – Combinatorics

MAT 475 – Topics in Mathematics (Game Theory)

 

Supervision of Graduate or Undergraduate Students

Member of examining committee, Paul Chapman’s honors project: Undecidable Problems, Mathematics and

      Statistics Department, August 2001-May 2002.

Supervised student assistants Fang Liu (Mathematics graduate student) and Paris Faison (Mathematics

     undergraduate student) to work on ranking players in team tournaments, April-August 2001. Funded

     through a grant from UNCW Information Technology Systems Division for research on high 

     performance computing and a graduate student summer research award for Fang Liu. Supervision joint

     with S.C. McLaurin and D.D. Smith.

Directed Shauna Turner’s honors project: High Performance Computing, Computer Science Department,

     January-December 2000.

Member of examining committee, Jeremy Morris’ honors project: “Frege”, “Kripke”, and Other Proper

     Names, Philosophy and Religion Department, Spring 2000.

Member of examining committee, Christopher Bullock’s honors project: Assessing the Effects of Drugs on

     Self-Control/Impulsive Behavior, Psychology Department, Spring 1999.

Advisor for Curt VanderVere’s master’s thesis: Resolvability of Balanced Incomplete Block Designs,

     Mathematical Sciences Department, Spring 1998.

Member of committee for Eunice Hocutt’s master’s thesis: Starters and Adders, Department of

     Mathematical Sciences, Spring 1996.

Member of committee for Yuhong Wang’s master’s thesis: Spherical Codes for the Gaussian Multiple-

     Access Channel, Mathematical Sciences Department, Fall 1995.

Supervised John Castano’s Seminar in Mathematics: Matrix Game Theory, Mathematical Sciences

     Department, Fall 1989.

Supervised Denise Spanos’ Directed Individual Study: A Multi-Tape Turing Machine with One Internal

     State, Mathematical Sciences Department, Spring 1986. Published in Journal of Undergraduate

     Mathematics, 20 (1988), 33-37.

Supervised Linda Kenshaw’s Directed Individual Study: Rating Software for Use in the Public Schools,

     Mathematical Sciences Department, Spring 1984.

 

University Committees

Committee                                                                          Date(s)

Calendar (Chair 2004-2006)                                           2002-06

Evaluation                                                                     2005-08

Task Force for Quality Assurance of

     Online Courses                                                         2003-04

SACS Instructional Support                                            2000-01

Hearings Panel                                                              1997-01

Computer Services                                                        1999-01

Buildings and Grounds                                                   1984-86

Protection of Human Subjects                                        1985-87

Radiation Protection                                                      1988-90

 

College Committees

Review committee for UNCW Summer Curriculum Development, 2000.

 

Department Committees

Committee                                                                          Date(s) 

Student Development Officer                                         2002-05

Senior Member                                                             2002-05

Peer Observation (Chair 1998-2001)                               1997-05

Library Representative                                                  1998-05

Course Coordinator for CSC 121-221-332                       2000-05

Course Coordinator for CSC 133-360-460                       1998-00               

Faculty Search                                                              1999-2002, 81-82, 90-91

SACS Faculty                                                               1990-91

Chair Search                                                                 1999

Computer Science Interest Group                                   1982-98

Mathematics Interest Group                                           1981-98

Graduate Interest Group                                                1989-90

Budget                                                                          1984-86

Faculty (Chair 1985-86)                                                 1982-86, 88-90, 92-93, 94-97

Student (Chair 1991-92)                                                 1987-88, 91-94

Lower Division Math (Chair 1983-84)                             1983-84

Curriculum                                                                    1983-84

Student Evaluations                                                       1982-85

United Way Representative                                           1982-85

 

Service to Professional or Scholarly Organizations

Referee for the journal Discrete Mathematics and the journal Applied Discrete Mathematics.

MAA Department Liaison, 1996-98.

 

Community Service

MATHCOUNTS coach at Wilmington Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS), Fall 2004-Spring 2005.

Judge for Southeast Regional Science Fair, March 1999 and March 1998.

Judge at the District VI Student Academy of Science paper competition, February 1997.

Judge for research paper presentation at the spring meeting of the North Carolina Student Academy of

     Science, April 1996.

Workshop convener for UNCW Community Colleges Faculty Articulation Workshop, February 1995.

Mathematics faculty articulation workshop, leader of group session: How Do We Motivate Students? 1992

Presented four talks to area middle school teachers in connection with UNCW Math Science Center, March-

     April 1986.

Presented talks on Rubik’s cube to classes at Nobel Junior High School and to children of PAGE  (Parents

     for the Advancement of Gifted Education), 1982.

 

Awards and Honors

Nominated for a Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award in January 2001, 2002, and 2003.

Received Director’s Award from Center for Teaching Excellence for entry in UNCW Web Page Contest,

     January 2003.

Named by UNCW graduating seniors as the one person at the university whose impact on them was

     significant (most semesters).

Recognized by the Center for Teaching Excellence in April 2001 for making a significant contribution to the

     UNCW teaching environment.

 

Professional Memberships

Association for Computing Machinery

American Mathematics Society

Mathematical Association of America

Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications