Laura Taalman Full Professor Department of Mathematics Roop 123, MSC 1911 James Madison University Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807 Voice: (540) 568-3355 Fax: (540) 568-6857 E-Mail: taal@math.jmu.edu

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Current Courses (Spring 2012)

Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
meetings/prep		meetings/prep	Research/writing	meetings/prep
11:15-12:05 Math 353 Roop 105		11:15-12:05 Math 353 Roop 105	Research/writing	11:15-12:05 Math 353 Roop 105
12:20-1:10 Math 235 Roop 213	12:30-1:45 Math 235 Roop 213	12:20-1:10 Math 235 Roop 213	Research/writing	12:20-1:10 Math 235 Roop 213
lunch/prep	lunch/prep	1:30-2:30 Office Hours Roop 123	Research/writing	lunch/prep
2:00-3:00 Office Hours Roop 123	2:00-3:00 Office Hours Roop 123	2:30-3:30 Knot Seminar Roop 119	Research/writing	2:00-4:00 6D Lab Roop 115
3:30-5:00 Colloquium Roop 103	4:00-5:00 Knot Students Roop 123		Research/writing
			Research/writing	5:00-8:00 Math 199 Roop 127

Previous Courses

103: The Nature of Mathematics - Fall 2006, Spring 2007, Fall 2007
107: Fundamentmals of Mathematics I - Fall 2009
199: Algebra/Precalculus Gateway - Fall 2012
231: Integrated Calculus I - Fall 2001, Fall 2002, Spring 2003, Fall 2003, Fall 2004, Fall 2005, Fall 2008, Spring 2011
232: Integrated Calculus II - Spring 2002, Fall 2002, Spring 2003, Spring 2004, Spring 2009, Fall 2011, Spring 2012
235: Calculus I - Fall 2000, Fall 2010, Fall 2012
236: Calculus II - Spring 2001, Summer 2002, Spring 2011
245: Introdution to Proof and Discrete Mathematics - Fall 2005, Spring 2006, Fall 2009, Fall 2012
353: Graph Theory - Fall 2008
430: Abstract Algebra I - Spring 2004, Fall 2004, Spring 2005
434: Advanced Linear Algebra - Fall 2007, Spring 2012
435: Topology - Fall 2006
REU Knot Theory: Summer 2003, Summer 2004, Summer 2007
REU Mancala: Summer 2011

Publications

Calculus Books
• Calculus (with Kohn), W.H. Freeman, First Edition 2013.
• Calculus I with Integrated Precalculus, W.H. Freeman, First Edition 2013.
• Integrated Calculus, First Edition Houghton Mifflin 2004, reprint W.H. Freeman 2009.

Sudoku Books
• Taking Sudoku Seriously (with Rosenhouse), Oxford University Press 2012.
• Beyond Sudoku (with Riley), Puzzle Wright Press 2012.
• No-Frills Sudoku (with Riley), Puzzle Wright Press 2011.
• Naked Sudoku (with Riley), Puzzle Wright Press 2009.
• Color Sudoku (with Riley), Sterling Publishing 2007.

Algebraic Geometry Papers
• "An exact sequence of weighted Nash complexes," Illinois Journal of Mathematics, Volume 52, Number 2, Summer 2008.
• "Complete resolutions, Hsiang-Pati coordinates, and the Nash sheaf," Manuscripta Mathematica 106, no. 2, 249-270, 2001.

Knot Theory Papers
• "Spiral knots" (with Van Wyk and students Brothers, Evans, Witczak, and Yarnall), Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 22, Issue #1, 2010.
• "p-Coloring classes of torus knots" (with students Breiland and Oesper), Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 21, Issue #2, 2009.
• "Counting m-coloring classes of knots and links" (with students Brownell and O'Neil), Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, Volume 12, Number 5, Fall 2006.

Sudoku Papers
• "Nest graphs and minimal complete symmetry groups for magic Sudoku variants" (with Arnold, Field, Lorch, and Lucas), submitted 2012.
• "Minimal complete Shidoku symmetry groups" (with Arnold, Field, and Lucas), Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics, to appear 2012.
• "Gröbner basis representations of Sudoku" (with Arnold and Lucas), College Math Journal, March 2010.

Mancala/Tchoukaillon Papers
• "Mancala Matrices" (with Tongen and students Warren, Wyrick-Flax, and Yoon), to appear in the College Math Journal, 2013.
• "Solitaire Mancala games and the Chinese Remainder Theorem" (with Jones and Tongen), to appear in the American Mathematical Monthly, 2013.

Poker Papers
• "Heartless Poker" (with Lanphier), submitted, 2013.

General Interest Articles and Media
• "The Mathematics behind xkcd: A conversation with Randall Munroe", Math Horizons, September 2012.
•  Podcast on Wild About Math with Sol Lederman, about Sudoku and mathematics, with Jason Rosenhouse, February 2012.
•  Interview on The Spark about mathematics and why anyone would do such a thing, WMRA radio, February 2012.
• "Taking Sudoku Seriously," Math Horizons, September 2007.
• "Puzzling Over Sudoku," Madison Magazine, September 2007.
•  Interview on With Good Reason about Sudoku and mathematics, Virginia Public Radio, May 2006.
• "Simplicity is not simple: Tesselations and modular architecture" (with Hunsicker), Math Horizons, September 2002.

Relatively up-to-date vita (2013)

Related Websites

Other Stuff

too tired to put other stuff here now. maybe later. go read BoingBoing instead.