Biographical Information - Bruce Ikenaga

The 2007--2008 academic year will be my 14th year at MU. Before coming to MU, I spent twelve years in the Department of Mathematics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. I graduated from Punahou School in 1972.

I majored in math at M.I.T. and graduated with a B.S. in Math in 1976. I did my graduate work at Cornell and received a doctorate in math in 1982. My thesis advisor was Kenneth S. Brown.

My professional areas of interest are group cohomology and homological algebra, group theory, and topology. They're a lot of fun, though most of their practical benefits are in other areas of math (rather than Real Life). In this respect, they are like (some) art, or music, or literature.

I spend most of my time teaching; I did not become a mathematician in order to teach, but I found out as I did it that I liked it, and that it was very rewarding.

Things I enjoy besides doing and teaching math:

• Working with computers I use TeX, perl, and some (Emacs) lisp to do my work. My programs are pretty ugly, but they usually do what I want.
• Strength training and running I stopped doing power lifting after college because it was too hard on my joints. Now I do dumbbell work (spare me the obvious jokes) and stuff with my old Soloflex (which still works great after 20 years!). I try to run 4 miles a couple of times a week. It would be nice if students who see me running would not make jokes about sundials, molasses, and drying paint.
• Reading Unfortunately, I'll read nearly anything. At the moment, I've got bookmarks in a couple of dozen books. Besides the inevitable math books and papers, the books I'm reading regularly at the moment include:
  • How Are We to Live by Peter Singer [ISBN 0-87975-966-6]. Singer was one of the founders of the Animal Liberation movement, and his views are often controversial. He writes clearly, and the views in this book seem rather humane.
  • The Making of the Middle Ages by R. W. Southern [ISBN 0-300-00230-0]. My AP European History teacher Jacques Pryor handed out reading lists with hundreds of books, and listening to his beautiful classes one could easily believe that he'd read all of them. He passed away just a few years ago. I'll always be grateful to him for recommending good stuff, even if it may take a lifetime for me to get around to all of it. Southern writes with great clarity, and his well-chosen examples are a help to those of us who aren't experts in this area.
  • The Book of Questions: II & III by Edmond Jabès [ISBN 0-8195-6049-9]. I read The Book of Questions I nearly 20 years ago; I didn't understand it, but I thought the writing was beautiful. I finally located a used copy of the second and third parts; I don't understand it, but I think the writing is beautiful. (But why is this book out of print?)

Send comments about this page to: bikenaga@marauder.millersville.edu.

Last updated: July 9, 2007

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