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.