Dr. Leigh C. Becker (home page)
photo courtesy of Mike Maple/The Commercial Appeal

Title: Professor of Mathematics
Office:  CW 312
Phone:  (901) 321-3443
email:  lbecker@cbu.edu

Fall 2009 Courses:  MATH 231 Differential Equations ; MATH 401 Linear Algebra, and MATH 481 Senior Seminar.

Length of service at CBU: Dr. Becker has been teaching at CBU since 1979.

Formal Education: Dr. Becker earned his B.S. in physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago; his M.S. in physics from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana; and his M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where he was awarded an SIU Graduate Fellowship and Dissertation Research Award.

Professional Interests: Dr. Becker regularly uses technology in his classes to help explain and illustrate mathematical concepts and to solve mathematical problems that require the use of a graphing calculator or computer. In particular, he is an avid user of Maple™, a computer algebra system, in his differential equations classes and in his own research. Two of his Maple computer programs have recently been published at the Maple Application Center. He has also contributed to the literature on mathematics education: an article entitled “Setting the stage with APR problems” is included in the Critical and Creative Thinking Skills Bibliography of the University of South Florida’s Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence. He was awarded the 2001-2002 Dr. Marguerite Cooper Distinguished Professor Award for Excellence in Teaching in Sciences and Mathematics, three sabbaticals, and a number of summer grants.

Dr. Becker’s research focus is functional differential equations. Recent publications appear in refereed journals of international standard such as Nonlinear Analysis, Electronic Journal of Qualitative Theory of Differential Equations, CUBO, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has presented papers at conferences, including invitations to speak at conferences of the American Mathematical Society and the World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts. One of his theorems is used and cited extensively in the research paper “Fixed points, Volterra equations, and Becker’s resolvent” by T. A. Burton, a prolific researcher and author of several research monographs in the application of Liapunov functionals and fixed-point theory to Volterra integral and differential equations.

Background:  Dr. Becker was born in Chicago and raised on an Illinois farm stretching along Route 50 between Iuka and Salem. He graduated from Salem Community High School in 1964 and was co-valedictorian. He has taught mathematics at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, mathematics and physics at a German gymnasium (high school) in Hamburg, and science courses at Patoka High School, Illinois.

Interests: Dr. Becker is married to Lynne Marie Becker, a graduate of CBU and St. Louis University and founder of Brainiac Tutoring in Memphis. They are the proud parents of four wonderful children, all of whose names began with “L.” Dr. Becker enjoys reading, walking, classical music, and looks forward to free time in his office for research.  He particularly enjoys going out to dinner and to classical music concerts with his wife and the time spent with his daughters.