A Little about Mark Mac Lean...

E-mail: maclean (domain: math.ubc.ca)
Office: MATH 113
Office phone: 827-3038
Fax: (604)-822-6074


I am on sabbatical 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013. Expect slower than usual responses to email. I will be out of the country for much of it.

In case you are interested: Here is my teaching philosophy and I have a blog that I started ages ago. I plan to add to it more frequently than once a year.

An assortment of things about me:

I am interested in various areas of Geometry and Analysis. I am currently studying Lie Integrals , which are logarithms of certain multiplicative integrals. For those familiar with the Baker- Campbell-Haussdorf formula, the Lie integral provides a generalisation of this result. There is a (non-abelian) Stokes' theorem for Lie Integrals and one can prove generalisations of such results as the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem.

I am studying the geometry of the Lie integral and its Stokes' Theorem. I am particularly interested in the case of nilpotent Lie algebras as they play a fundamental role in sub-Riemannian geometry.

For 17 years I taught with UBC's Science One Program , a first year course that provides a solid introduction to Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. This team-taught program in the Faculty of Science at UBC is in its sixteenth year and is a great experience for both the faculty and the students.

I just stepped down from the Editorial Board of Pi in the Sky, a publication of the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences aimed at high school students and teachers.

I am the Academic Director for UBC's Jump Start Program, which is an academic transition program for new international and Aboriginal students. It has proven success in helping to increase retention rates and to improve academic performance. We are in the midst of expanding this program to include on-going support for these students' the first year.

I am involved in writing children's books to encourage interest in mathematics amongst Aboriginal children. This is a project with Veselin Jungic at SFU called Math Catcher: Mathematics Through Aboriginal Storytelling. There are some wonderful animations done from the illustrations for these books. There are versions in a number of First Nations languages, including Blackfoot, Cree, Squamish, and Halq'eméylem.

I am the Vice President of the UBC Faculty Association.

I enjoy cooking. This picture is taken in Eneida's kitchen in LaBarra, Colombia. Of course, Eneida is a wonderful cook herself.

Here is a picture taken at Parque Tayrona, which is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

For more information about the Science One Program.

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Last updated: 14 July 2012
Page Maintained by: Mark Mac Lean