When not contemplating radar systems,
Nolan enjoys brewing his own beer.

The term "radar" may invoke thoughts of target selection or methods to detect and curb smuggling through coastline surveillance. It probably doesn't prompt thoughts about the mathematical equations and theories behind those radar systems. Or does it? It did for mathematics professor John Nolan, who has designed several programs for these radar systems.

Nolan has worked with people from Patuxent Naval Air Station in Maryland and his programs are now in experimental use in the Navy. Nolan's work is a prime example of how all the writing and theory work in math can be put to a practical use. And there is a lot of writing and theory work.

"Math departments can be pretty cheap," Nolan joked. "All they need are paper, pencils, and an eraser." Although it began as theoretical, Nolan's work has become valuable for people in finance, genetics, and further realms beyond radar.

"Biologists do the 'wet work' or lab work," he said. "But mathematicians and statisticians are still needed to analyze the results.'' Nolan spent two sabbaticals at NIH working with scientists in the Human Genome Institute and in the Mathematical and Statistical Computation Laboratory.

"Gene maps are constructed using mathematical formulas," he said. He is involved in the study of genetically complex diseases. Genetically complex diseases, such as the inherited bowel disorder known as Hirschsprung disease, are caused by a combination of defective genes, which make locating the specific genetic factors contributing to the disease difficult. According to Nolan, the search techniques are a combination of biology to collect data and mathematical computer techniques to analyze that data and locate the contributing gene. He is currently working on a related project with some of his graduate students.

Nolan is also working on a book to be called Stable Distributions, which he plans to complete within a year. He has been teaching at AU for 16 years.