UR math professor honored with Fulbright

February 22, 2017

Spider Pride

One of the great things about having faculty who are great scholars and teachers is that they often go out into the world to do cutting edge research and then bring that knowledge back to the classrooms on campus.

This fall, Jim Davis, a professor of mathematics, will jet set to Germany, France, and Canada to engage with other scholars of the math community in solving problems related to coding theory and combinatorics, specifically Boolean function theory and difference sets.

Davis was honored with a Fulbright Global Scholar award to support his research efforts.

“What I do is the math of communication,” Davis explains. “When you text, when you stream video, when you shop online, there’s a lot of math that balances speed, accuracy, and security. There have been many advances in these technology spaces in the past 10 to 15 years, and there’s a need now to further review the math and make improvements as needed. That’s what I’ll be working on with other leading experts.”

Davis has taught at Richmond since 1988. He has received grants from the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation and Hewlett-Packard and has published numerous articles. He received his bachelor's degree from Lafayette College and masters and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Way to go, Prof. Davis! Send us a postcard, would ya?

Learn more about Davis's scholarship