David Feldman received a B.A. in Physics from Carleton College in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Davis in 1998. From 1991-1993, he was a teacher of 9th and 10th grade physics and mathematics at The McCallie School in Chattanooga, TN. As a graduate student at UC Davis, Dave received several awards in recognition of both teaching and scholarship: The Dissertation Year Fellowship; The Chancellor's Teaching Fellowship; and he was nominated for the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award.
Dave joined the faculty at College of the Atlantic in 1998. He served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2003-2007. At COA Dave has taught over twenty different courses in physics, mathematics, and computer science. Among these classes is Introduction to Chaos and Fractals, an introductory course for students with a preparation in algebra. Dave has authored at textbook based on this class, Chaos and Fractals: An Elementary Introduction. (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Dave has recently become interested in teaching about renewable energy and energy conservation. With Anna E. Demeo, a lecturer at COA in engineering, he has developed and team-taught an introductory course on the physics and mathematics of sustainable energy. Anna and Dave received a $95,000 grant from the Maine Space Grant Consortium Research and Higher Education Program to support the development of the class. Anna and Dave have also received an $18,000 grant from the Environmental Education Program of the Environmental Protection Agency to develop and teach a workshop on sustainable energy for area elementary school teachers. This workshop will be held in the summer of 2011.
From 2004-2008, Dave gave a week-long series of lectures at the China Complex Systems Summer School (CSSS), co-sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute and the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. His lectures provided students with a broad introduction to complex systems, including dynamical systems, information theory, and computation theory. From 2006-2008 he was co-director of the China CSSS, collaborating with colleagues at the Chinese Academy to oversee all academic and logistical aspects of the program. He was PI on a $116,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation that partially supported the CSSS.
In 2011-12, Dave was a U.S. Fulbright Lecturer in Rwanda. He held an appointment as a visiting professor of Applied Physics at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). At KIST he taught four classes for junior and senior physics majors: Computational Physics, Statistical Physics, Mathematical Physics II, and Atomic and Molecular Physics. He also taught an introductory physics course to 180 chemistry, biology, and food science majors.
Dave's research interests lie in the fields of statistical mechanics and nonlinear dynamics. In particular, his research has examined how one might measure "complexity" or pattern in a mathematical system, and how such complexity is related to disorder. This work belongs to the constellation of research topics often referred to as "chaos and complex systems." In his research, Dave uses both analytic and computational techniques. Dave has authored research papers in journals including Physical Review E, Chaos, and Advances in Complex Systems.
His other interests include ultimate frisbee, hockey, cooking, travel, brewing beer, and gardening. He is married to Doreen Stabinsky; they have three excellent cats.
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