Sam Huckaba
BS ’80, Mathematics, University of Missouri
MS ’83, Mathematics, Purdue University
PhD ’86, Mathematics, Purdue University
"Rarely does a day pass by without at least a silent acknowledgment of appreciation of my good fortune at having attended Purdue."
Looking for patterns and interconnections is integral to a mathematician’s way of thinking, says Sam Huckaba, who believes his academic training has been indispensable to his leadership role at Florida State University as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Since his tenure as dean began in 2012, the college has grown in faculty size, student enrollment, degrees awarded, and external research funding.
Huckaba began his undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri in physics, and then switched to engineering before earning his BS in mathematics. He continued on in mathematics at Purdue University for his MS and PhD. While at Purdue, he established an independent research program that led to his dissertation work and guided his research career in commutative algebra, with connections to algebraic geometry. His research also explores applications of algebra to statistics, cryptography, and coding theory.
After finishing his graduate studies at Purdue, Huckaba was a visiting professor of mathematics at the University of Kentucky before joining the Department of Mathematics at FSU as an assistant professor in the fall of 1987. He has been recognized for excellence in teaching and in research and has participated widely in departmental administration. Before serving as dean, he led the FSU mathematics graduate program through a time of rapid growth and change, and he also served as associate dean, senior associate dean, and interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
- Florida State University Teaching Award, 1991, 1994, 2002
- Florida State University Developing Scholar Award for Research, 1994
- Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Florida State University, 2012