January 30, 2002

Contact:

Sarah Ray

802-443-5794

sray@middlebury.edu

Posted: January 30, 2002

MIDDLEBURY, VT -

Middlebury College has named Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer

Science Daniel Scharstein the recipient of the 2002 Perkins Award for

Excellence in Teaching. At 4:15 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 25, an award ceremony

will be held in Room 104 of Bicentennial Hall on Bicentennial Way off

College Street (Route 125).

The award is given each

year to a member of Middlebury College’s natural sciences division, alternating

each year between a faculty member in the mathematics and computer science

department and a faculty member in one of the other four departments in

this division-biology, chemistry, geology and physics. The award honors

outstanding teaching performance in science and mathematics.

Scharstein grew up in Germany

and moved to the United States in 1990 to attend Cornell University’s

doctoral program in computer science, where he received his degree in

1997. He taught at Williams College from 1996-1997. Scharstein joined

the Middlebury faculty in 1997. Since then, he has taught computer science

courses ranging from “Computer Vision” and “Compiler Design”

to “Introduction to Computing” and “Data Structures.”

His area of research interest is computer vision, particularly stereo

vision and image-based rendering. He has also collaborated on research

regarding mobile robot navigation.

The Professor Llewellyn

R. Perkins and Dr. Ruth M.H. Perkins Memorial Faculty Research Fund, which

provides the award, was made possible by the gift of Dr. Ruth M.H. Perkins,

a 1932 Middlebury graduate, in memory of her husband, Professor Llewellyn

R. Perkins. Professor Perkins taught at Middlebury College from 1914 until

his retirement in 1941. During the course of his tenure at Middlebury,

he founded and chaired the mathematics department. Their children, Marion

Perkins Harris, a 1957 Middlebury graduate and science teacher, and Dr.

David L. Perkins, a physician, augmented the fund and expanded the scope

of the award to honor their mother, Ruth, as well. She was a Vermont State

helping teacher and a professor of math education at Temple University

in Philadelphia.