Michael HvidstenEmeriti

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Mike Hvidsten received his PhD in 1985. His thesis work was in the area of minimal surfaces, a subfield within the field of differential geometry. Perhaps he was attracted to the study of minimal surfaces due to his love of blowing soap bubbles. If you take a piece of wire, wrap it into a loop, and dip it into soap film, the resulting surface will minimize area subject to the wire boundary -- you will form a minimal surface.

Mike joined the Gustavus faculty in the fall of 1987, after spending two years in a post-doctoral research position at Michigan State University. Mike has taught almost every math course offered by the Gustavus Math and Computer Science department, as well as several computer science courses. He has received six National Science Foundation grants and has given over thirty invited or contributed presentations at regional and national mathematics meetings.

Mike is the author of a college textbook on Geometry and is the programmer behind the software project "Geometry Explorer." This program allows students to actively explore Euclidean and Non-Euclidean environments on the computer.

In 2005 Mike received the Gustavus Faculty Scholarship Award and in 2007 he received the Meritorious Service Award from the North Central Section of the Mathematical Association of America.

In his spare time, Mike is actively involved in Amnesty International,  enjoys reading and writing science fiction, and loves to tinker with gadgets in his basement workshop.

Courses Taught