In 2014, Prof. Matthew Dickerson completed his 25^th year as a member of the computer science department at Middlebury College. He earned a BA from Dartmouth College in 1985 and PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University, and was the first faculty member with a Ph.D. in computer science hired by the college. During his 25 years at the college he has received more than ten federal funded research grants including grants through the National Academy of Sciences, NATO, and various NSF programs. His primary research area has been algorithms and data structures for geometric, geographic, and spatial computing — an area known as computational geometry in which he is internationally known for his work on Voronoi diagrams. He has also done research and published several papers on computer science education, and is in the final year of an NSF grant exploring the use of agent-based modeling in the introductory computer science curriculum. Currently, Professor Dickerson is working on a research project on spatially explicit agent-based modeling of killer whales in southeast Alaska in collaboration with biologists and computer scientists at the NOAA and the University of Alaska.

Prof. Dickerson also did graduate work in Old English Language and Literature and has published several books including a recent medieval historical novel titled The Rood and the Torc, set in mid 7^th century Europe. He is an internationally known scholar on the works of J.R.R.Tolkien with four published books about Tolkien as well as book chapters on Tolkien in five other volumes.…

Matthew Dickerson has also continued his research and writing about literature, with a special interest in environmental literature and nature writing, and in mythopoeic literature (especially that of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis). He is also an internationally known Tolkien scholar. He has published several books about literature, including: Ents, Elves and Eriador: the Environmental Vision of J.R.R.Tolkien (with Jonathan Evans, University Press of Kentucky, 2006) and Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C.S.Lewis (with David O’Hara, University Press of Kentucky, 2009) which bring together his interests in environmental and mythopoeic literature.