Erica Flapan
Erica Flapan is an American mathematician, the Lingurn H. Burkhead Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College.Education and career
Flapan did her undergraduate studies at Hamilton College, graduating in 1977, and went on to graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning a Ph.D. in 1983 under the supervision of Daniel McMillan.
After postdoctoral studies at Rice University and the University of California, Santa Barbara she joined the Pomona faculty in 1986. Flapan's research is in low-dimensional topology and knot theory.Books
She has published numerous papers, as well as worked on four books.
- She is the author of the book When Topology Meets Chemistry: A Topological Look at Molecular Chirality.
- In 2009, Flapan edited the book Applications of Knot Theory along with Dorothy Buck.
- With James Pommersheim and Tim Marks she also wrote the book Number Theory: A Lively Introduction with Proofs, Applications, and Stories.
- In December 2015, she published a "fun" introductory topology textbook, Knots, Molecules, and the Universe: An Introduction to Topology.
Recognition
In 2011, Flapan was one of three winners of the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics, from the Mathematical Association of America. In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and in the same year as part of the bicentennial of Hamilton College was honored with a Hamilton Alumni Achievement Medal. In recognition of her devotion to mentoring, Flapan won the M. Gweneth Humphreys Award from the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2018.
