Adom Giffin has been appointed assistant professor of mathematics at Clarkson University.

Giffin received his bachelor of science degree in physics from Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Mich., and his master of science and doctoral degrees in theoretical physics from the State University of New York at Albany. His thesis was titled "Maximum Entropy: The Universal Method for Inference."

Before coming to Clarkson, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University working in the applied physics group (head: Prof. Richard. B. Miles) in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering through the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials, and both a teaching assistant and lecturer at SUNY Albany.

He is also a consultant for BioSensors Inc. and Trans Tech Systems Inc., both in Schenectady, N.Y.

Although his Ph.D is in physics, his thesis work generalizes statistical inference by unifying two main areas: Bayesian inference and the maximum entropy method. The methodology is a generalized form where each is now a special case and, being more general, is able to tackle problems that were not solvable until now.

His work has been applied to many areas of research, such as econometrics, ecology, complexity, chaos, condensed matter, and structural health monitoring, and is being used in several universities. His research interests include using maximum entropy and Bayesian inference methods as tools for inductive reasoning in all sciences.

Giffin has received several awards, made 13 invited presentations, written or co-written 11 refereed articles, co-edited one book, co-organized two international conferences and has been awarded one research grant (PI) and several other funding grants.

He is affiliated with the American Physical Society, the New England Complex Systems Institute, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.