Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Dr. Baker earned his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Montana in 2006 and the doctorate in Chemistry from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, in 2011. He joined the Elmira College community in the summer of 2011 and will be teaching the General Chemistry sequence as well as Senior Chemistry Seminar.

An analytical chemist by training, Dr. Baker’s research interests merge the fields of materials chemistry, environmental chemistry and separation science. His current work focuses on the novel application of liquid-phase separation techniques to better understand the physical and chemical properties of magic-sized inorganic nanoclusters.

Dr. Bezotte earned her Ph. D. in 1991 from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, in an interdisciplinary  Chemistry and Biology program. At Elmira College she teaches Cell and Molecular Biology, Microbiology, General Biology and The Biology of Cancer. 

Dr. Bezotte is advisor of the Elmira College Medical Technology program.   She and undergraduate researchers study such subjects as stream water quality, cellular cytoskeletal arrangements in apoptosis, effects of non-traditional cancer remedies, genetic markers in evolutionary relationships and developments for learner centered classrooms.  Her research group has presented at various professional venues.

Dr. Bezotte co-authored and received a matching funds grant from LI-CORE Scientific for a DNA sequencer.  She is committed to undergraduate student research and to community outreach.  She co-authored and received a grant from the AAUW Foundation to support an innovative program, Women Investigating Stream Ecology (WISE), to promote achievement in science among girls in the Elmira City Schools.  She also assists parent-teacher-student connections through “Family Science Nights.”

Dr. Bouthyette has taught at Elmira College since 1989.  He regularly teaches General Chemistry, Biochemistry, and (in Term III) Fermentation.

His doctorate is from Cornell University.  A native of Canada, he graduated from the University of Montreal.

Dr. Egan earned his B.S. in Biology at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio; his M.S. in Botany at Miami University in Ohio; and the Ph.D. in Botany at Ohio University. Since joining Elmira College, his research interests are to work with students on salt-tolerant plant growth and seed germination.  He has published on the historic Lucy collection of the Elmira College Herbarium, and actively publishes on teaching in the sciences with an emphasis on laboratory activities.  His recent publications include a book chapter in Tasks for Vegetation Science: Ecophysiology of High Salinity Tolerant Plants.

He teaches mostly plant-related courses including General Botany, Ethnobotany, Plant Ecology, and Plant Physiology.  He also teaches Biological Concepts I, and Genetics and co-leads the Term III trip course to San Salvador Island in the Bahamas.

Dr. Gillie earned the Ph.D. in Zoology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, having graduated from the University of Minnesota – Duluth.  At Elmira College she teaches Ecology, Animal Behavior, Comparative Anatomy, and other vertebrate biology courses.  She has taught the field course, Marine and Island Ecology on San Salvador Island, Bahamas regularly since 1998. 

A behavioral ecologist, Dr. Gillie studies – with undergraduate students – foraging and population dynamics of white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and perceived predation risk in woodchucks (Marmota monax).  S he has been active as a member and officer of ACUBE, the Association of College and University Biology Educators and has published in the Association’s journal Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching.

Dr. Jacobson earned the Ph.D. in mathematics from Northwestern University, and has been a faculty member at Elmira College since 1990.  He teaches courses at all levels in the mathematics program, and has developed new additions to the curriculum, including courses on dynamical systems, probability, and geometry.  Since 2000, he has been a regular participant in The Natural and Social History of Eastern Australia, a Term III travel course.  He is advisor of the Elmira College mathematics club.

His primary research areas are in chaotic dynamical systems and geometric visualization and construction.  In addition to paper presentations at conferences, he has constructed and sold models of the hyperbolic plane for classroom use, and has had crocheted geometric models exhibited in an art show.  He has begun studying problems in the statistical analysis of ordinal scale data. 

He is married, and has the extreme pleasure of getting to walk to work every day with his wife, who also works at the College.  He enjoys gardening, hiking, and camping.

Dr. Kjar grew up in Minnesota and attended college in South Dakota.  He did his graduate work at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.   Dr. Kjar's research focuses on ecology, computer modeling, and bioinformatics.  He studies alien plants, ant communities, and the impact of sampling protocol on biodiversity estimates.  Dr. Kjar also collaborates with researchers at the University of Georgia and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History to produce online taxonomic keys, species lists, and searchable online databases. 

At Elmira College Dr. Kjar teaches Biological Concepts II,  Developmental Biology, Evolution, Field Biology, Introduction to Environmental Studies, and Invertebrate Zoology.

Dr. Joseph Kolacinski, the son of William Kolacinski, a police officer and Mary Kolacinski, an artist, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1964. He is named for his maternal grandfather, who was one of the great pen and ink illustrators of the 1920’s and 30’s.

Dr. K grew up, mostly, in Lake Worth, Florida where he had many strange and fascinating adventures. In college he studied mathematics at Palm Beach Junior College and Florida Atlantic University, culminating in a Doctorate of Arts from the University of Miami in 2003. Along the way he became very active with Circle K and Kiwanis, investigated American political history, read lots of Science Fiction, collected Comics and attended every Rolling Stones concert in the state of Florida in the 1990’s.

He has been teaching college mathematics since 1989. At Elmira College, Dr. K. teaches the full range of courses in the Mathematics Curriculum and has created courses like “A Mathematician Looks at American History,” “Mathematics for Elementary Educators” and “Destination Moon: The Science Fiction of Robert A. Heinlein.” His research interests lie in the areas of Voting Theory and Mathematics Education and he has contributed to both the Wolfram Demonstrations Project and the MAPLE Application Center.

Dr. K. currently and happily resides in Horseheads, New York with his wife, Dr. Joanne Redden, and their two cats, all of whom hope to have many more strange and fascinating adventures.

 

Dr. Meyer has been teaching Mathematics at Elmira College since 1978.  He teaches the full range of undergraduate mathematics courses.  He holds the bachelors degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and the doctorate in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis.  His doctoral research was in the area of Differential Geometry (at one point he was probably the world’s leading expert on transversally parallelizable foliations in co-dimension two). 

Dr. Meyer has taught computer-related courses, with a particular interest in Operating Systems.  His current scholarly interest is in understanding how people learn mathematics and exploring ways to use technology to help students learn mathematics.

Dr. Meyer has served as Chair of the Division of Mathematics and Natural Science for four terms and has chaired the Faculty Executive Committee often.  He is the proud father of four extraordinary young women and the doting grandfather of two beautiful grandchildren.

Dr. Pratt earned the M. S. in Zoology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the Ph.D. in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.  He teaches a variety of courses, including Introduction to Computer Information Systems, Introduction to Paleobiology, and in Term III, The U. S. Civil War in Book and Film.

His research explores archeological digs for fossils of New York of the Devonian period and Mark Twain’s interest in field biology, paleontology, and geology.  Recent publications include “A Fossil Guide to Mark Twain’s Essay, ‘Was the World Made for Man?’ in The Mark Twain Annual, and presentations to the New York Paleontological Society at the American Museum of Natural History, The Museum of the Earth, the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies and The Rochester Academy of Sciences, (podcast for Scientific American).  

Dr. Pratt’s favorite pastimes include listening to world-traditional music and bicycling.

Dr. Przybylski earned the Doctorate in Differential Equations from Western Michigan University in 1978.   His graduate study also included extensive work in statistics, computer science and other areas of applied mathematics.  Before coming to Elmira in 1986 he served on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University where in addition to undergraduate teaching he also taught graduate courses and supervised masters theses in the area of Operations Research. 

Like all mathematics faculty at Elmira College, he teaches a wide variety of mathematics and statistics courses.  He has been published in the United States and Asia.  Dr. Przybylski's current research is in the area of understanding and facilitating the learning of college-level mathematics, which includes developing pedagogy using specialized materials and computers to enhance the learning of mathematics. 

Dr. Przybylski has co-authored a text on Precalculus for McGraw-Hill. In addition to mathematics, he is a serious jazz enthusiast and often teaches a course in Jazz History and Appreciation in Term III.

Dr. Corey E. Stilts earned his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from SUNY Buffalo. Dr. Stilts joined Elmira College in 2009 and he teaches the Organic Chemistry sequence, Senior Chemistry Seminar and a term III course in Forensic Science. He is also the advisor for the American Chemical Society student affiliate chapter at Elmira College.

Dr. Stilts is interested in the applications of Photodynamic Therapy (PDT), which has been traditionally used a cancer treatment, as a method to reduce bacterial and microorganism infections. Dr. Stilts’ has had numerous undergraduate students present their research at the spring national meetings of the American Chemical Society.