Biographical Paragraph -- John Little


I have been a faculty member at Holy Cross since 1980 and have taught 
almost all of the mathematics courses offered at the college, as well 
as a few computing courses and a variety of seminars for first-year students
over the course of six years in Montserrat and its predecessor.  In addition,
I have supervised undergraduate research in a wide range of projects here 
and in summer programs at two campuses of the University of Puerto Rico, at 
the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, and at 
the University of Hawai'i at Hilo.  My primary research interests concern 
computational techniques in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra and 
applications of those ideas to areas such as error-control coding theory, 
signal processing, and celestial mechanics. I have also recently developed a 
strong interest in the history of mathematics and have been studying ancient 
Greek as a student in courses in Holy Cross's excellent Classics department 
in order to read some important works in their original forms. This experience 
has also renewed my appreciation for what it means to be a student learning 
something challenging for the first time!  I do mathematics (and Greek) much 
of the time, but I am not only a mathematician -- I love traveling (especially 
by train), I read widely in fiction and history, and I'm a fan of classical, 
jazz, and salsa music.  I also play the viola in the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra.  
Greetings to the incoming class of 2020 and welcome to the Montserrat CHQ Cluster 
learning and living community!