Diana Thomas (mathematician)

Diana Maria Thomas is an American applied mathematician known for her research on nutrition and body weight.[1][2][3] She is a professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy (West Point).[4]

Education and career

Thomas is originally from Glendive, Montana, where her father was a physician; she is a graduate of Dawson County High School in Glendive,[5] and majored in mathematics at the University of Montana, graduating in 1991.[6] She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1996 from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her dissertation, Dynamics of Lattice Systems, was supervised by Shui-Nee Chow.[7]

After postdoctoral research at West Point and the Army Research Laboratory, she joined the faculty at New Jersey City University in 1998, and moved to Montclair State University in 2000.[8] In 2017, she returned to West Point as a professor.[4]

Research

Topics in Thomas's research have included a comparison of the effects of dieting and exercise on weight loss,[1] the effects of weight loss on pregnancy,[2] epidemiological approaches to obesity,[3] the use of biometric data to predict military training injuries,[9] and a statistical comparison of the body types of military recruits with Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.[5][10]

Recognition

In 2012 the New Jersey Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) gave Thomas their Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. The award recognized her "dedication to teaching, her untiring devotion and concern for students, her work with students outside the classroom, her commitment to undergraduate research, and her classroom experimentation based on learning and human motivational literature". It noted in particular the many undergraduate research projects she supervised, two of which led to best poster awards at MAA conferences, as well as her work to double the size of the poster sessions at the Joint Mathematics Meetings.[6] She was awarded the 2023 AMS Dolciani Prize for Excellence in Research "for her outstanding research at the interface of mathematics with nutrition and obesity; her work in number theory, combinatorics, and dynamical systems; and her impressive work with undergraduates."[11]

References
  1. Reynolds, Gretchen (August 1, 2012), "Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss", The New York Times
  2. Mann, Leslie (February 19, 2015), "Losing weight before pregnancy is healthier for mom, baby", Chicago Tribune
  3. Servick, Kelly (February 19, 2017), "Should we treat obesity like a contagious disease?", Science
  4. Dr. Diana Thomas, Professor of Mathematics, United States Military Academy, retrieved 2019-09-29
  5. Herbaugh, Hunter (June 21, 2020), "Glendive native published in JAMA", Glendive Ranger-Review
  6. Citation: Dr. Diana Thomas (PDF), New Jersey Section, Mathematical Association of America, 2012, retrieved 2021-02-06
  7. Diana Thomas at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. "Getting to know: Diana M. Thomas, Editorial board member, EJCN", European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 66 (9): 977, September 2012, doi:10.1038/ejcn.2012.38
  9. World Class Faculty: Dr. Diana Thomas, Department of Mathematics, United States Military Academy, retrieved 2019-09-29
  10. Mundell, E. J. (June 10, 2020), "Leonardo's 'Vitruvian Man' Ideal Isn't Far Off Modern Measures", U.S. News & World Report
  11. "News from the AMS". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
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