Craig  Bauer Author of Evaluating Organization Development
FEATURED AUTHOR

Craig Bauer

Associate Professor of Mathematics
York College of Pennsylvania

I love all aspects of cryptology, the mathematics, the history, the politics, appearances of ciphers in fiction, music, and art, as well as their use by criminals. My desire to share all of the above with my students led me to write Secret History: The Story of Cryptology. I also make frequent trips to deliver talks off-campus, happy to share my passion with any audience.

Biography

Craig Bauer was first introduced to cryptology as a mathematical subject by Jay Anderson, a computer science professor at Franklin & Marshall College. An independent study in cryptology completed Craig's minor in computer science. Craig's major at Franklin & Marshall was mathematics and he went on to graduate school at North Carolina State University. He took a graduate level course in the subject, as well as another independent study course, which led to his Master's thesis. He eared his PhD in pure mathematics in 1999. Following graduation, Craig accepted a position as assistant professor of mathematics at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, where he desgined a new course in cryptology and also coached powerlifting. (The connection to cryptology is that "brute-force" solutions are sometimes required.) Three years later, he moved back to his home state of Pennsylvania, taking a position at York College of Pennsylvania. By this time he had absorbed enough cryptology to begin publishing in Cryptologia. He designed an improved version of his cryptology class for York College, and later another class for non-math majors titled History of Codes and Ciphers. Craig's publications deal with mathematical and computational aspects of cryptology, as well as historical and pedagogical. He is most proud of the papers he coauthored with undergraduates. His professional work and enthusiasm led him to be appointed to Cryptologia's editorial board and soon thereafter as editor-in-chief fo the journal.  His favorite aspect of serving as Cryptologia's editor is the many interesting people he gets to interact with, and often meet. Craig received grant funding from the Mathematical Association of America to work with a local high school cryptology class under the direction of his former student and coauthor Elliott Gottloeb. The class has run twice so far and Craig hopes to soon design a course at another school. The financial support provided by the grant covered the textbooks, as well as field trips to the National Cryptologic Museum and the International Spy Museum. During the 2011-2012 academic year, Craig Bauer served as the ninth Scholar-in-Residence at the National Security Agency’s center for Cryptologic History. Preceded by top-knotch historians such as David Kahn, he was the first mathematician to fill the role. Craig's first book, Secret History: The Story of cryptology, is a comprehensive look at both the history and mathematics of cryptology, presented with absolute minimal prerequisites. He is currently at work on other books that blend history with mathematics.

Education

    BA in Mathematics, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster PA, 1994
    PhD in Pure Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC, 1999
    MS in Pure Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC, 1996

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

    Cryptology (mathematics, history, and pedagogy, Enumerative Combinatorics, Rook Theory

Personal Interests

    Reading (comic books, math books, horror, unexplained phenomena, science fiction), Powerlifting, Horror Films

Websites

Books

Featured Title
 Featured Title - Secret History The Story of Cryptology - 1st Edition book cover