sponsored by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
and the Clarion University Faculty Development Fund
The last twenty five years have seen monumental changes in the way our society addresses environmental issues. Names like Bhopal, Three Mile Island, and Love Canal bring back vivid memories to many middle-aged and older Americans, but the stories and lessons of those and related cases are already slipping away from the next generations. One wonders if we are approaching with equal naïveté and awkwardness the multidimensional environmental challenges of today and tomorrow. Drawing on the Woburn, Massachusetts, groundwater contamination case popularized in the recent John Travolta film, "A Civil Action," based on an award winning book by Jonathan Harr with the same title, the speaker will discuss some of the technical issues arising in that case, the central role of very simple mathematical modeling in analyzing these issues, and the challenge of explaining these issues to judges, juries, legislators, and the general public.
Charles Hadlock received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1970, specializing in applied mathematics. He taught at Amherst and Bowdoin Colleges before joining the firm of Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1977, where he developed and led an interenational consulting practice in environmental management and risk analysis. His central focus was the investigation and follow-up to the unfolding environmental calamities of the day, including Love Canal, Bhopal, and Three Mile Island, and the use of mathematical models to enhance the understanding of and response to these situtations. In 1990 he moved to Bentley College as Chair of Mathematical Sciences, and is currently Dean of the Undergraduate College and Associate Dean of Faculty. Dr. Hadlock has written an award-winning book on Galois theory, and has just completed a new book, "Mathematical Modeling in the Environment," published by the MAA.