Torrence, Bruce

Bruce Torrence Biography

By Jordan Richards

Bruce Torrence is a very talented and successful mathematician who is currently Garnett Professor of Mathematics at Randolph Macon College (RMC) in Ashland, Virginia. Growing up, math was always a large part of Bruce’s life and it continues to grow within his family. Bruce has many achievements within mathematics which include published articles, books written, and awards received. Along with his achievements in mathematics, he also has achievements outside of math . Bruce has a family, which he believes is his greatest achievement, which includes his ongoing project of raising his two kids. From raising a family, coediting math publications, and teaching mathematics at the college level, Bruce is a very successful individual.

Bruce was born in New York in 1963, and later moved to Newtown, Connecticut where he spent his childhood growing up. He attended public school in Newtown, and continued in the same school district throughout high school. Bruce graduated from Newtown High School in 1981, which lead to the beginning of his long college journey. The first college that Bruce attended was Tufts University to get his Bachelors Arts degree in mathematics. Bruce graduated from Tufts in 1985. Not only did he receive his math degree, he graduated Summa Cum Laude for mathematics. This was not the end of Bruce’s academic journey, but just the beginning. After graduating from Tufts, he moved to the University of Maryland to receive his masters. From Maryland, he continued his pursuit of a PHD to the last of the universities he attended as a student, the University of Virginia. Finally in 1991, Bruce received his PHD in algebraic topology under Bob Strong at the University of Virginia along with the many degrees throughout his collegiate journey from 1981--1991.

Throughout this journey, Bruce’s PHD was not the only thing that changed his life. Over this ten year span and jump from college to college, Bruce was also lucky enough to meet the love of his life, Eve Torrence. 

Eve and Bruce met each other their senior year at Tufts College. Eve and Bruce, both being math majors, had many classes together and mutual friends. They started out as harmless ‘math buddies,’ but as time went on, Bruce and Eve began to fall in love. After Tufts, the two followed each other from college to college until they moved their relationship to the next level. Today, Bruce and Eve are now married and have, as they describe, the two most wonderful kids they could have hoped for. Luckily for both Bruce and Eve, they were able to land jobs at the same university. In 1993, Bruce landed his now present job at Randolph Macon College (RMC) in Ashland, Virginia. Eve was able to follow Bruce a year later in 1994.

When Bruce started at RMC he worked as an assistant professor, but has now been promoted to fulltime professor. As a professor, Bruce worked with many of his advisees at RMC working on many different problems, helping him acquire a very broad knowledge base in mathematics. He worked as a fulltime professor for over a decade, publishing multiple papers including one that received an ‘outstanding’ COMAP mathematics competition, writing the textbook The Student's Introduction to Mathematica with Eve, being a recipient of John M. Smith award for excellence in mathematics teaching, and much more. He continued on this road of success until he had what he and his wife believe as his biggest breakthrough in the mathematical community. In 2009, Bruce made what he believes as his biggest mathematical contribution to the community in becoming the coeditor of Math Horizons. Math Horizons is a very popular forum for anyone in the mathematical community. Bruce’s position is a four year position, and he will be ending his term as coeditor in December of 2013. Bruce has had many successes in his lifetime, but he knows he would not have been able to achieve as much as he has without collaboration from other mathematicians.

Bruce has worked with a large array of people over the years, with a main one being his wife. As stated earlier, Eve and Bruce have written a textbook together which is now on its second edition. Along with creating a textbook, they have also done more for the mathematical community. Eve and Bruce have worked on other things like writing an NFS grant and co-chairing math awareness week. Along with Eve, Bruce has worked with many other mathematicians and had great contributions to the mathematics community. Someone that he worked a lot with over the years was Andy Vogt, a professor from Georgetown University. Andy and Bruce have published a couple papers that he says has “made some noise in the mathematical community.” They focused on working with different types of statistics. Recently, Bruce has collaborated with David Swart, a digital imaging specialist on a series of articles on stereographic photography. The articles that they wrote were selected to appear in The Best Writing on Mathematics 2012, which is something Bruce was very humbled by. Success in the math community is something that Bruce has come to enjoy, but along with working in the mathematical sector, he also enjoys spending his time doing his many hobbies.

Bruce has many hobbies including cycling, photography, jazz, drinking good beer, and spending time with his family. At RMC, Bruce is head of the cycling club and has been an avid cycler for most of his life. For most people, these hobbies would be completely separate from mathematics, but for Bruce that is not always true. Eve states “Bruce is a mathematician, that can't be separated from his everyday life. He reads mathematics books for fun. Doing math is one of his hobbies.” Bruce cannot exactly stay away from mathematics. Recently, Bruce has been mixing his mathematical passion with his photography passion. This mixing of passions is one of the factors that led to his collaboration with David Stewart. Bruce is a mathematician at heart, and who knows where his hobbies and math will mix in the future.

As stated before, out of all these accomplishments, Bruce believes that his largest was that of his family. He is a father first and a mathematician second, he and his wife both believe this. One thing that he looks forward to when finishing his professional career is being able to spend time with his wife, kids, and dogs. Something else that is interesting about Bruce's family is that the math does not just end with him and Eve, their oldest son is also a successful growing mathematician. Recently, Bruce and his son worked together looking into the ‘Lights Out’ games, and made some strong new discoveries. Bruce’s son, Robert Torrence, is a junior at The College of William and Mary and is going to school to receive his degree in mathematical biology.

Overall, Bruce is a family man who just happens to be a really good mathematician. From growing up through grade school and college, math has been a center point of his life. As he goes on from here, he does not know what he is yet to accomplish. With his tenure at Math Horizons coming to a close and his family getting older, he is going to continue to focus more on his teaching and fun projects like his math photography. As time moves on, he is slowly getting closer and closer to retirement, whereas said by himself, “I am looking forward to enjoying retirement, travel, continue with photography, and of course,

some math.”

Citation:

Randolph Macon College Website. (September, 2013). Dr. Bruce F. Torrence Bio. Retrieved from http://faculty.rmc.edu/btorrenc/btbio/btbio.html

Torrence, B., (October 2013). Personal Communication

Torrence, E., (October 2013). Personal Communication