Jessica Sklar
Jessica Katherine Sklar (born 1973) is a mathematician interested in abstract algebra, recreational mathematics, mathematics and art, and mathematics and popular culture. She is a professor of mathematics at Pacific Lutheran University, and former head of the mathematics department at Pacific Lutheran. Education and career. As a high school student, Sklar studied poetry at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She did her undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College, where her mother Elizabeth S. had earned a degree in English (later becoming an English professor at Wayne State University) and her father Lawrence Sklar had taught philosophy. Jessica completed a double  major in English and mathematics in 1995. Next, Sklar moved to the University of Oregon for graduate study in mathematics, earning a master's degree in 1997 and completing her Ph.D. there in 2001. Her dissertation, "Binomial Rings and Algebras", was supervised by Frank Wylie Anderson. She has been a faculty member in the mathematics department at Pacific Lutheran since 2001. She currently is a participant in the Mathemalchemy Project. Recognition. Sklar was a winner of the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award of the Mathematical Association of America in 2011 for her paper with Gene Abrams, "The Graph Menagerie: Abstract Algebra  and the Mad Veterinarian". The paper provides a general solution to a class of lattice reduction puzzles exemplified by the following one: She was the July 2012 Author of the Month at Ada's Technical Books in Seattle, Washgington.