Dr. Robert F. Olin

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Robert F. Olin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama, has been selected to serve on the Committee on Science Policy for the American Mathematical Society.

Founded in 1888, the American Mathematical Society is the world’s leading mathematical research society and seeks to promote mathematical research, education and appreciation of mathematics. The Committee on Science Policy is one of five major committees that oversee the organization’s policies. Olin joins a group of 18 members, which include several winners of the Fields Medal Award, the Pulitzer Prize of mathematics.

Olin is nationally recognized for his innovative implementation of technology in education. During his 25-year career at Virginia Tech, Olin founded the Math Emporium, the first such computer-based student laboratory in the country.

When he joined UA in 2000, Olin established a similar facility. UA’s Math Technology Learning Center, a 240-computer math learning community housed under UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, was designed to remove traditional obstacles to undergraduate learning of math by replacing lecture and blackboard instruction with interactive, self-paced computer programs in an environment where students also receive individual tutoring. Located in Tutwiler Hall on the UA campus, the MLTC received the Special Award of Merit from the Alabama Quality Council in 2000.

Olin is also a member of two standing boards in the National Research Council, the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education and the Steering Committee on Criteria and Benchmarks for Increased Learning in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

While at UA, Olin has also spearheaded efforts to adapt college courses for the use of technology and overseen the construction of the $58 million, high-tech Shelby Hall Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, one of the largest academic research buildings in the Southeast.

Olin received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1970 from Ottawa University in Kansas and a doctorate in mathematics in 1975 from Indiana University in Bloomington. He has authored numerous scholarly papers in the fields of operator theory and functional analysis and has more than 20 years of continuous research funding.

The American Mathematical Society has more than 28,000 individual members and 550 institutional members in the United States and 140 other countries. Members include students, college and university faculty, and mathematicians employed in government and in the private sector. Olin began his three-year term with the Committee on Science Policy this month.

The College of Arts and Sciences is Alabama’s largest liberal arts college and the University’s largest division with 355 faculty and 6,600 students.