Michael
J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
"And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche" Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, line
308.
Qualifications:
I have a B.A. Magna cum Laude from the
University of California at Berkeley in Mathematics, With Special Distinction
in Mathematics. I also got straight A's in Honors Physics. As a Junior at U.C. Berkeley, I ranked 37 1/2th out of 1300
college math students in the nation in the annual mathematics contest sponsored
by the Mathematical Association of America. I have an M.A. in Mathematics
(including study in Statistics) from Harvard University. And my Ph.D. from the
University of California at Los Angeles is in Psychology, concentrating in
Psychometrics. Psychometrics is the science of the measurement of human
behavior and traits, and forms the scientific basis upon which transportation
modeling and all other forms of human measurement rest. I taught measurement
theory -- specifically, Reliability and Validity -- at California State
University, San Francisco. I have been a computer programmer since 1962. I
taught computer science for U.C. Berkeley Extension. In other words, I am an
expert in mathematics, statistics, scientific method, measurement science
(including modeling), and computer science. On my own, I have studied conservation
biology, and have written and presented papers at
numerous environmental and scientific conferences. I’m the world’s foremost
expert on mountain biking impacts, partly because most researchers are mountain
bikers or are otherwise biased in favor of mountain biking, and don’t tell the
truth.
Passions:
Art (especially Winslow Homer, Jose
Orozco, Diego Rivera, Albert P. Ryder, Utamaro, A.
Paul Weber), bicycling, biology (especially frogs and snakes), bookstores
(especially Black Oak and Kinokuniya), English
Literature (especially Emerson, John Steinbeck, and Walt Whitman), habitat restoration
(removing invasive non-native plants), ham radio, hiking and camping, judo,
languages (especially German, Japanese, and Spanish), libraries, mathematics
(especially calculus, point-set topology, and trigonometry), music (especially Johann
Sebastian Bach, Agnes Chan, Crystal Gayle, Cyndi Lauper, Iris DeMent, John Seed, "Keep on the Sunny Side of
Life", "Across the Great Divide" (Kate Wolf), Joan Baez, Martha Schlamme, Ravi Shankar, Red Gum, Sharon Burch, Stephanie
Davis, Tammy Wynette, Wagner (especially
"Tristan and Isolde" and "The Flying Dutchman"), and Yothu Yindi), nurses, organic
food, plants (especially trees), picking up trash (get a picker-upper like the
"Park Patrol" from Pikes Peak Industries, PO Box 9422, Colorado
Springs, CO 80909), programming (especially assembler and PL/I), reference
librarians, Synanon, teachers, the U.S. Southwest,
water (especially streams), wilderness
Peeves:
Air pollution, callousness towards
wildlife, drugs, guns, invasion or destruction of wildlife habitat (especially
by vehicles, such as ATVs, horses and burros, jetskis,
mountain bikes, rafts, snowmobiles, and other ORVs), motor vehicles, road and
highway construction, violence, waste (especially time)
Favorite Foods:
Fruit juice (especially pomegranate),
Indian, Japanese (especially sushi), Mexican, Native American (especially
pumpkin soup), olalieberry pie, organic tomatoes,
Persian (especially chicken pomegranate), tropical fruit (especially durian,
mango, and papaya), Washington State apples, Bartlett pears, blackberry pie,
persimmons, and rhubarb pie
Favorite People:
I
prefer people (like some of those I found in Synanon)
who want to make the world better. It amazes me how many people think that life
consists of simply building their own nest, & then
sitting in it. Where do they think the tree came from?
Favorite Poets:
Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, William
Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Walt Whitman