Christopher J. Tralie
Overview
I am a long time coder who's an artist/mathematician at heart, and I believe in cultivating kindness and human flourishing. Education, mentoring, and sharing ideas widely and authentically are central to my mission.
I am currently an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Mathematics And Computer Science at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, where my teaching specialties are in CS theory (data structures, theory of computation) and CS applications (computer graphics, digital music processing, and artificial intelligence) .
I do research in audio processing and geometry processing, mostly focused on music information retrieval, but also with some applications to medical data analysis. In all of my work, I have a strong focus on algorithm visualizations and open source software development.
My partner Celia Litovsky teaches in prisons (and in more typical environments) and does research in neuroscience and educational science, particularly focused on reading and literacy, but also with a long term interest in alzheimer's research. My brother James Tralie makes videos for NASA as well as various 3D art projects on the side (including my favorite application ever: Luttrell's album art).
Academic Bio Sketch
I received a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering with a Computer Science minor at Princeton University in 2011, an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from from Duke University in 2017. As a Ph.D. student, I was advised jointly by Guillermo Sapiro and John Harer, and I was funded by an NSF Graduate Fellowship. I was also member of the College Certificate in Teaching (CCT) program at Duke. After doing a postdoc in the Math Department at Duke followed by another postdoc in the Chemical And Biomedical Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins, I began a tenure track faculty position in the Department of Mathematics And Computer Science at Ursinus College in the fall of 2019. I received tenure in 2025, and I also received the Laughlin Teaching Award that year in recognition of outstanding teaching, as nominated by students and ultimately selected by the college president to be presented at commencement with the class of 2025.
Other
Now that I am a faculty member, I will not accept military funding of any sort. Benjamin Kuipers gives well reasoned arguments I agree with, and his experience parallels mine in many ways. I hope more people will stand with us on this issue as we work to decenter the military industrial complex.
Related to the above, click here to read an essay I wrote about how the National Science Foundation (NSF) changed my life, and why we shouldn't be cutting funding to such a crucial agency.
