After more than 22 years in the Mathematics Department, 163 publications, 135 academic presentations, eight book chapters, four books and countless international teaching and research awards - Dr. Brian McCartin is retiring from Kettering University.

McCartin is a decorated mathematician who has won teaching (2001 and 2006) and outstanding research (2000 and 2010) awards at Kettering and was recognized nationally with the Chauvenet Prize in 2010 (Pulitzer Prize for Math) from the Mathematical Association of America.

“I’m going to miss teaching itself,” McCartin said. “I’m going to miss the classroom experience. I still to this day, enjoy the classes.”

Since 1993, 19 of his 105 Kettering publications were co-authored with eight different students. His papers have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Norwegian. In 2001, McCartin also solved a 100-year-old problem involving the geometry of linear regression and the resulting Galton-Pearson-McCartin Theorem bears his name. Despite the quantity and quality of his research accomplishments, McCartin still sees himself as a teacher first.

“My mother was an elementary school teacher and I always felt a bond there,” McCartin said. “I have been a teacher disguised as a researcher.”

Falling in Love with Mathematics

McCartin was in first grade in Rhode Island when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik which, to some extent, marked the end of United States’ dominance in science and technology. Amazed by Sputnik’s achievement, McCartin fell in love with all the sciences and was able to pinpoint the one discipline that brought all his passions together.

“Math is the common denominator,” McCartin said. “I could follow-up my love of all the sciences with math and not have to pick one.”

McCartin completed his bachelor’s and master’s in applied mathematics at the University of Rhode Island in 1976 and 1977 respectively. He then took a full-time job at United Technologies while simultaneously enrolling in a doctoral program in the renowned Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. The school was founded by exiled German mathematicians during World War II and annually attracts the brightest minds in math from all over the world. Admittedly, McCartin didn’t finish in the top of his class in 1981 but he did learn the virtues of effort.

“I was motivated by fear,” McCartin said. “I was there with people who were unbelievably brilliant. I was intimidated. It left me with a feeling that if I didn’t work my hardest then I wouldn’t make it in math. The opportunity to rub shoulders with the best instilled in me this concern that if I didn’t work work work I wouldn't be able to keep up with the pack.”

After 12 years at United Technologies, McCartin was Chairman of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute-Hartford and briefly taught at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut before being attracted to a tenure-track position at Kettering. Once his colleagues became aware of his intentions to leave the east coast for the midwest, they began leaving copies of Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” in his mailbox.

“I didn’t know anything about Flint but the thing that attracted me to Kettering was the co-op program,” McCartin said. “I had 12 years of experience and most institutions weren’t in a position to take advantage of that experience. I felt like Kettering would really value that I was in the trenches for 12 years and that indeed turned out to be the case.”

Working with Students

In addition to the hundreds of publications, countless statewide and national committee appointments and awards, and numerous classes taught, McCartin especially reveres the opportunity to work with three specific Kettering students.

In 1999, McCartin and Suzanne (Labadie) Larsen ‘99 co-published a paper on stock option pricing that was presented before the Mathematical Association of America and published in the professional journal Applied Mathematics and Computation. Larsen went on to work for General Motors but has since returned to Flint as a full-time mathematics faculty member at Mott Community College.

In 2000, McCartin and master’s student, Jesse Benny, partnered with Dr. Patrick Atkinson in the Mechanical Engineering department to work on improving knee replacement surgery. Mathematical challenges arose as they worked on cadavers which resulted in experimenting with aerial photography and projective geometry to improve the process.

“So I got interested in linear regression,” McCartin said. “As an outgrowth of this problem, I solved a 100-year-old problem.”

In 2006, Matt Causley and McCartin jointly published an analysis on hyperbolic heat conduction which deciphered moments when heat travels as a wave similar to sound.

“Working with Brian was a wonderful life-changing experience,” Causley said. “His analytical abilities - ability to take a problem and break it into smaller pieces shaped the way I thought about mathematics.”

Causley went on to get his doctorate at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and completed his postdoctoral work at Michigan State University.

Post-Kettering Pursuits

McCartin is known in the classroom for distributing mathematics books to students who produce outstanding work. He is also renowned for having one of the largest personal math libraries in the country at 9,000 unique titles. He jokes that there’s only room for two grand pianos, one cat and books in his home in Flint.

The pianos represent a lifelong pursuit of music that he shares with his wife, Barbara. They used to play together as “The Killer Bs” at the Flint Institute of Music, where they first met, but have since retired from performing.

“We still play together,” McCartin said. “We have two grand pianos in our music room. When we got married neither of us wanted to get rid of our grand pianos.”

McCartin will continue writing and focus on his music after retiring. He leaves the Mathematics Department at Kettering in good hands as one of his final feats in the summer of 2014 was to recruit Causley back to Kettering, this time, in the role of an assistant professor.

“That brings my whole career full circle, from student to colleague,” McCartin said. “Now I can safely turn the department over to his generation knowing that they are going to take good care of it.”