Faculty Profile

Brian Gill

Brian Gill

Professor of Mathematics; Chair of Mathematics

Email: bgill@spu.edu
Phone: 206-281-2954
Office: Otto Miller Hall 239


Education: MA, Mathematics, University of Kentucky, 1994; MS, Biometry and Statistics, University at Albany, 1999; PhD, Mathematics (complex analysis), University at Albany, 1999. At SPU since 1999.

Dr. Brian Gill is the chair of the Mathematics Department, and he teaches a wide range of classes at SPU, including courses in probability and statistics, real and complex analysis, differential equations, and vector calculus.

His research interests include pure mathematical research in geometric function theory (a branch of complex analysis). However, his current research primarily involves applications of statistics in collaboration with researchers in other disciplines, particularly in social sciences and health sciences. Most of his recent research has involved human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction. This work has been conducted in collaboration with research labs at the University of Washington and has been funded by several National Science Foundation grants.

Outside of work, Dr. Gill spends most of his time with his wife and seven children. For recreation, he loves to head outdoors — backpacking, camping, hiking, kayaking, or just enjoying the beauty of God’s creation.


Selected publications

Kahn, Peter H. Jr., Takayuki Kanda, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Brian T. Gill, Jolina H. Ruckert, Solace Shen, Heather E. Gary, Aimee L. Reichert, Nathan G. Freier, and Rachel L. Severson. (2012) “Do people hold a humanoid robot morally accountable for the harm it causes?” HRI ’12 Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 33–40.

Denning, Tamara, Alan Borning, Batya Friedman, Brian Gill, Tadayoshi Kohno, and William H. Maisel. (2010) “Patients, Pacemakers, and Implantable Defibrillators: Human Values and Security for Wireless Implantable Medical Devices.” Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 917–26.

Kahn, Peter H. Jr., Batya Friedman, Brian T. Gill, Jennifer Hagman, Rachel L. Severson, Nathan G. Freier, Erika N. Feldman, Sybil Carrère, and Anna Stolyar. (2008) “A Plasma Display Window? – The Shifting Baseline Problem in a Technologically Mediated Natural World,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(2), pp. 192–99.

Gill, Brian T. and Thomas H. MacGregor. (2006) “The Hyperbolic Density near an Isolated Boundary Point,” Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics, 36(6), pp. 1873–84.

Gill, Brian T. and Thomas H. MacGregor. (2003) “Minimum Points and Level Sets of the Hyperbolic Density,” Complex Variables, 48(3), pp. 225–34.

Please view Dr. Gill’s CV (PDF) for additional publications.

Personal links

Dr. Gill’s website

Why I Teach at SPU

Brian Gill, Professor of Mathematics; Mathematics Department Chair

“SPU’s small, Christian, liberal arts atmosphere has been a perfect fit for me.  I love teaching undergraduates, and I love being able to engage deeply with students, both within the classroom and beyond the classroom.  SPU’s location in a vibrant urban center has also provided me with rich opportunities for consulting and collaboration as a statistician on cutting-edge research problems in fields like human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction. ”