Welcome New 2008 Faculty
Tom Asaki, Associate Professor
Dr. Asaki has joined the Mathematics department from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he enjoyed working in multidisciplinary settings that integrated people and methods across the mathematical, computational, experimental, and engineering sciences. Asaki obtained his Ph.D in Physics at WSU in 1995, under Philip Marston, then worked at LANL first as a postdoc and finally as a technical staff member until 2008.In 2000, he helped to start a team with another new faculty member, Kevin Vixie, focused on exploiting insights from the mathematical sciences to solve tough data challenges. Here at WSU, Asaki and Vixie have created the Data Challenge Cooperative aimed at the development of a sustainable interdisciplinary research and education environment. Asaki's research stream focuses on mathematical and computational challenges in optimization problems with applications to image and data analysis. Tom and his wife have two young sons.
Anna Johnston, Assistant Professor
Dr. Anna Johnston has returned to WSU 24 years after completing her bachelors degree. Leaving WSU, she spent 11 years in Maryland doing cryptologic research for the government followed by eight years of optimization and information theoretical research at Sandia National Laboratories.In 1988, Johnston earned a M.S. from George Washington University and a Ph.D. in 2005 from the University of London (Royal Holloway College) while working for Sandia National Laboratories. After working a year in private industry in San Jose, California, she spent two years in Ireland doing postdoc work at the Claude Shannon Institute at Dublin City University. Raised in Hawaii, the return to WSU brings Johnston closer to her mother and siblings living in the west.
Libby Knott, Professor
Dr. Libby Knott comes to WSU after working 12 years at the University of Montana at Missoula. Knott earned her bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University, her M.S. from Colorado State University, and her Ph.D. from Oregon State University. Her research interest is in the use of discourse in mathematics education, and she is currently editing a monograph on this subject. For 4 years she was the UM co-PI and research director of the Center for Teaching and Learning in the West, a center devoted to increasing the number and quality of doctoral students in mathematics and science education. She is also involved in the mathematical professional development of K-12 teachers.Libby grew up on the west coast of Scotland. She and her husband have lived and traveled extensively in Europe and the far east.
Kevin Vixie, Associate Professor
Dr. Kevin Vixie joined the Mathematics department from LANL, where he founded a team focused on exploiting insights from the mathematical sciences for the solution of tough data challenges. He then founded a team with Tom Asaki and began developing a research program focused on the dual goals of 1) new developments in geometric measure theory, with a view to applications and 2) the development of new methods for the extraction of information from data, often exploiting insights from geometric analysis. Vixie obtained his B.S. from Walla Walla University and his Ph.D. from Portland State University. Here at WSU, he and Asaki have created the Data Challenge Cooperative aimed at the development of a sustainable interdisciplinary research and education environment.His early life was deeply influenced by a handful of mentors including his polymath musician father, adventurous mother (who started a nursing school in Kenya in the late 1940's), and a number of other musicians, scientists and miscellaneous eccentrics. His family enjoys hiking, skiing, running, cooking and baking, playing and listening to music, art, design, fabrication/innovation in their shop and gardening in their new Pullman yard.
Tom Asaki
Anna Johnston
Libby Knott
Kevin Vixie