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by Jackie Inouye
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 He was a
Baylor decathlete and a math-lete — two factors usually not seen in the
same equation. Whether he’s at the track or at the chalkboard, Jeff
DaCunha loves the challenge. “Math never came easy. I had to put my
time in to study it,” says DaCunha, a math postdoctoral Fellow who
successfully defended his dissertation on dynamic equations on time
scales at Baylor last spring. “I enjoy mathematics. It takes you away
for a while when you get really caught up in it.”
DaCunha completed a bachelor’s degree in math with a minor in
computer science at Baylor in 2000. He earned a master’s degree with a
concentration in abstract algebra and then stayed for his doctoral
work, becoming the first person to take and complete at Baylor the
doctoral program in mathematics, which began in 2001. He received his
PhD in mathematics with a specialization in differential equations in August.
It was more than academics that convinced John Davis,
assistant professor of mathematics, that DaCunha would be a good fit
for the program. “He was a decathlete at Baylor; he was very
disciplined and not afraid to try new and difficult things. You often
have to do that in research. I saw that in him, that enthusiasm and the
thrill of the chase when you’re onto a big theorem,” says Davis, who
was DaCunha’s PhD adviser.
Since the new program started, interest in it has grown each year
but as the first to go all the way through it, DaCunha often had
undivided attention. “I went through the program alone, so it was kind
of tailored. They are making it very challenging, which is good,” he
says. This year, there are about eight people enrolled.
DaCunha’s dissertation topic evolved from research he began during
his first year in the program. He, Davis, Ian Gravagne, assistant
professor of engineering, and Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of
Electrical Engineering, studied a new type of math called time scale
theory. It tries to unify and extend two existing mathematical theories
— discrete dynamical systems and continuous dynamical systems — that
share some similarities but at other times are vastly different. “There
are many important applications — sometimes neither one theory nor the
other will work, but a unified one will,” Davis
says. He believes that time scale mathematics can help improve medical
devices that utilize robotics that work on a mixture of macro and micro
scales. This research now is funded by a $300,000 grant from the
National Science Foundation for three years.
The team research helped DaCunha gain confidence. “They treated me
as a peer … which allowed me to do better things,” he says. “Now when
we work, we do group work and projects on our own so we can fall back
on each other and say, ‘What do you think of this or that?’”
He attended four conferences and presented papers at three of them
while completing his graduate education. He met the authors of books he
was studying and interacted with some of the leading mathematicians in
the nation. “One of the great things about the Baylor math department
is the travel for the grad students. It really exposes you and gets you
into that pipeline,” he says.
At a conference in Arizona, DaCunha made a connection that led to
his receiving the prestigious Davies Fellowship with a teaching
component at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., this fall.
He had dropped a résumé in the Academy’s conference mailbox and the
next morning, West Point recruiters asked DaCunha about his area of
research. Soon after, he received the offer for the Fellowship, a
program started in the mid-1990s and funded by the National Research
Council. As part of the contract, he will teach three classes at West Point
and conduct research at the Army Research Lab in Maryland, which will
lead to future work on military projects such as unmanned autonomous
vehicles. “The Army and all the branches of the military are coming out
with these robotic planes that are flying themselves. We’re trying to
use our new mathematical theory to improve on these systems,” he says.
DaCunha, who was a part of Baylor’s track team for five years and
continued to train with them until this summer, also will have a chance
to run with the military cadets, an opportunity he looks forward to
almost as much as teaching them calculus. Since he graduated with his
master’s degree, DaCunha has taught 24 classes at Baylor and a
community college in Waco. “As far as the lifestyle a professor has,” he
says, “I don’t think it can be beat.”
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