cs
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
--Sir William Bragg
Brian Patterson
Graduate Student
Iowa State University

I am currently working on my PhD degree advised by James I. Lathrop and Jack H. Lutz. I completed my Masters degree (2002-4) in the area of machine learning under Dimitris Margaritis (with Jack Lutz and Dan Ashlock on my committee).

My complete and formal vitae can be found here. I recommend this PDF as a more official listing of my work. I also provide a Teaching Philosophy Statement and Research Interests Statement and am happy to provide evidence of teaching excellence, graduate transcript, and references.

Activities Related to Teaching
  • Instructor, Introduction to Computer Science; Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Baltimore, MD (Saratoga Springs, NY site), July to August 2009
  • Instructor, Object-Oriented Design; Iowa State Department of Computer Science, January-May 2009
  • Instructor, Introduction to Programming; Iowa State Department of Computer Science, August-December 2007, January-May 2008.
  • Instructor, Algorithms; Iowa State Department of Computer Science, May-July 2007
  • Instructor, Introduction to Programming;Iowa State University OPPTAG, July 2006, July 2007, July 2008, July 2010
  • Instructor, Introduction to Computer Science; Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Baltimore, MD (Easton, PA site), June to August 2005
  • Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Student, Iowa State; Fall 2004 to present
  • Teaching Assistant; Iowa State Department of Computer Science, Fall 2002, Spring 2003, Summer 2003, Summer 2004, Fall 2004, Spring 2005, Fall 2005, Spring 2006, Fall 2006, Spring 2007
  • Undergraduate Fellow; Park City Mathematical Institute, July to August 2000
  • Teaching Assistant for Theoretical Foundations of Computer Science; Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, June to July 2000
  • Supplemental Instruction Leader and Grader; Carleton College, 1999-2001
Research Interests
(in rough order of interest)
  • Real-Valued Computation
  • Computational Complexity Theory
  • Unsupervised Learning Using Bayesian Networks
Research Goals

My primary research interest is in computable analysis, a field of study that seeks to provide a realistic theoretical foundation for scientific computing. An unrelated research goal I would like to mention is developing improved course materials for the courses that I teach. Foremost is developing a basic machine learning textbook for undergraduate students as well as eventually creating a textbook for a course on computable analysis. A complete research interests statement can be found here.

Projects and Research Papers
  • J.I. Lathrop, J.H. Lutz, and B. Patterson (2011). Multi-Resolution Cellular Automata for Real Computation. Proceedings of the Computability in Europe Conference (CiE), Sofia, Bulgaria. (under consideration)
  • B. Patterson and D. Margaritis (2005). Essential Hidden Variables: An Introduction. Proceedings of The Second Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI), Pune, India.
  • Brian Patterson (2004). Essential Hidden Variables: An Introduction and Novel Algorithm for Detection. Master's Thesis, Iowa State University. Available as PDF.
  • Facundo Bromberg, Brian Patterson, and Sandeep Yaramakala (2003). Mining Bayesian Networks from Streamed Data. Course Project, Principles of Database Systems (CS561), Iowa State University Spring 2003. Available as PDF.
  • Brian Patterson (2002). Methods of Learning Bayesian Networks from Data - A Test on the ADULT Data Set. Course Project, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (CS572), Iowa State University, Fall 2002.
  • Brian Patterson (2001). Clustering: Unsupervised Learning. Senior Integrative Exercise, Carleton College, Spring 2001. Available as Powerpoint 2001 file (1553k, zipped).
  • Brian Patterson (2000). Quantum Gates - A Closer Look. Quantum Information Theory (course), Carleton College, Fall 2000). Available as web pages.
  • Brian Patterson and Erin Quealy (2000). Fiber Optic. Course Project, Computer Networking, Carleton College, Spring 2000. Available as web pages.
Other Experience
  • Computer Advisory Committee Member Representing the Department of Computer Science (2009-2011); Iowa State University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Ames, IA
  • Graduate Advisory Committee, Secretary and President (2003-5); Iowa State University, Department of Computer Science, Ames, IA
  • Affiliations: Member of IEEE, ACM, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, and Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society for Computing Disciplines.