Bruce Piper
Head
Mathematical Sciences
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
United States of America
Biography
Developing courses that teach applications of basic data analysis techniques such as data visualization, classification, clustering, and ridge regression to undergraduate math majors is one of the primary efforts. By using a case study approach, students are immediately immersed  into understanding high-dimensional data and provided with a fundamental toolkit with which they can analyze data throughout their careers. Another effort is to contribute to the retention of STEM majors by enabling upper class students to act as mentors for first year students in Calculus courses. This provides leadership experience for the mentors and guidance for the Freshman on how to succeed in STEM.
Research Interest
Computer-aided geometric design, Mathematics Education
Publications
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B. R. Piper; Some Properties of Local Coordinates Based on Dirichlet Tessellations; in: Computing Suppl. 8 (1992)
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P. Alfeld, B. Piper, and L. L. Schumaker; Minimally Supported Bases for Spaces of Bivariate Piecewise Polynomials of Smoothness r and Degree d > 4r + 1; Computer Aided Geometric Design, Volume 4, No. 1-2, 1987.
