James Preen

Associate Professor, Mathematics

Originally from the UK, James’ undergraduate B.Sc. is from Leicester and his Ph.D. was done in Nottingham. He taught for six years at the University of Zimbabwe, and also managed the departmental computer network there. He always planned to become Canadian eventually, but chose to go to Canada next to avoid his Zimbabwean dog having to go into quarantine. Since 2002 he has taught Mathematics at Cape Breton University, and has been the chair of the department of Mathematics, Physics and Geology for the last five years. Although trained as a combinatorialist, his teaching is mainly in the area of algebra, both linear and abstract. All of his classes encourage interaction with the students and use open book tests and exams. When possible, take-home assignments are used, to allow students to show their understanding rather than just their memory or speed. Dr. Preen does research in Graph Theory, the study of abstract networks; you can think of them as representing railway maps or computer circuit boards.

Expertise:

Graph Theory; algebra and structures. Regularity, distance and polynomials.