mathematics

Ron Buckmire

Ron Buckmire is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ron Buckmire rather than just read about it. In short: Ron Buckmire (born 1968) is a Grenadian-born mathematician, former chess champion of Barbados and LGBT activist. He is the past chair of the Occidental College Department of Mathematics.

Key takeaways

Ron Buckmire belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ron Buckmire to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ron Buckmire from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ron Buckmire (born 1968) is a Grenadian-born mathematician, former chess champion of Barbados and LGBT activist. He is the past chair of the Occidental College Department of Mathematics. Starting in August 2018, he served as the Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs and Director of the Core Program at Occidental College for four years. In March 2024, he was named Dean of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Marist University in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Early life and education Buckmire was born in 1968 in Grenville, Grenada. In 1969 his family moved to the United States while his father earned a Ph.D. degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and in 1978 they moved to Barbados. There Buckmire attended high school at the Combermere School. Buckmire returned to the United States in 1986 to attend the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), graduating with a B.S. degree in three years and earning his Ph.D. in 1994, both in mathematics. His dissertation was on transonic aerodynamic flow, titled "The Design of Shock-Free Transonic Slender Bodies", under the advisement of Julian David Cole and Donald William Schwendeman.

Career In 1994 he joined Occidental College as a postdoctoral researcher, and in 1996 he gained an appointment there as an assistant professor. After being granted tenure and promotion in 2004 he served as department chair from 2005 to 2010. His research interests include computational fluid dynamics for aerodynamics, nonstandard finite difference schemes, and the application of mathematical models to unusual phenomena such as the financial performance of movies. From 2011 to 2013 Buckmire was a Program Director (rotator) at the National Science Foundation (NSF), in the Division of Undergraduate Education. After returning to Occidental he was promoted to Full Professor in 2014 and served as interim department chair for three semesters starting in Fall 2015. In summer 2016 he returned to NSF as Lead Program Director, a position he held until 2018. Starting in 2021, he is serving as SIAM's first Vice President for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. His term as Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs and Director of the Core Program at Occidental College ended in August 2022. In August 2024, Buckmire began serving as Dean of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Marist College. Marist College was renamed Marist University on January 29, 2025.

Research Buckmire's research is in the area of applied mathematics, particularly investigating numerical solutions of ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. He has published multiple papers that show how to use nonstandard finite difference schemes to produce approximations to solutions of the Liouville–Bratu–Gelfand equation in one-dimension and in cylindrical or spherical coordinates.

Activism Buckmire is also known as an LGBT activist. He came out during college in 1988 or 1989, having gained information about homosexuality through the early Internet. He became active in several student organizations at RPI, including serving as president of the Rensselaer Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Association and even co-founding the Women Students Association. In 1991 he began the Queer Resources Directory, an online resource that for information on issues relating to sexual minorities, and in the 1990s administered several queer electronic mailing lists/discussion groups. He was also active in outreach through radio, co-creating a queer local radio show called Homo Radio while at RPI, and later becoming a contributor to This Way Out, a national radio newsmagazine show. He organized a mailing list associated with LGBT meetups at the Joint Mathematics Meetings; this group of people evolved into Spectra.

Awards and recognition Buckmire was awarded the NOGLSTP GLBTA Educator of the Year for 2011. Buckmire was also recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month 2018 Honoree. He was elected to the 2023 Class of SIAM Fellows.

Personal life From his youth, Buckmire participated in competitive chess, becoming Barbados Junior Champion four times and National Champion three times, and as of 1997 was ranked as a senior master and one of the top 250 chess players in the United States. Buckmire is married to Dean Elzinga, a former professional opera singer who is now a data scientist at IBM Research.

References

External links Professional Website at Occidental College Faculty Website at Occidental College Queer Resources Directory

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ron Buckmire

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ron Buckmire claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ron Buckmire before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ron Buckmire ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ron Buckmire

In research: Ron Buckmire appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ron Buckmire in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ron Buckmire is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1968 births, 20th-century African-American people, 20th-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ron Buckmire outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ron Buckmire in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ron Buckmire means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ron Buckmire out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ron Buckmire in simple terms?

Ron Buckmire (born 1968) is a Grenadian-born mathematician, former chess champion of Barbados and LGBT activist. He is the past chair of the Occidental College Department of Mathematics.

Why does Ron Buckmire matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ron Buckmire?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ron Buckmire.