About Chris Wyman

How time files... I'm now 25 years old and a PhD candidate here at the University of Utah. I'm in my fifth year as a graduate student in Utah, and tremendously busy, as anyone simultaneously finishing a degree and beginning a job search can tell you. After living in Utah for a number of years now, I can tell you it is a relatively nice place to live. There are benefits living near the mountains, but I miss the lakes and rivers of my native state of Minnesota. Perhaps I'll move someplace completely different when I graduate and miss both Utah and Minnesota.

Besides my work in graphics, I try to have a social life as well. I continue to play the trumpet in various bands here at the University of Utah. I've played in Concert Bands, Pep Bands, the Marching Band, and the Olympic Spirit Band (for the 2002 Winter Games). A number of years ago, I wrote up a bit about my experience in the Utah Marching Band, with comparisons to my time in the Minnesota Marching Band. It's a bit outdated, and I keep meaning to update it with newer pictures and discussion, but it keeps getting postponed. You can find that slightly dated write-up here. I also wrote a bit about my experience during the Olympics. I'd really recommend anyone with a similar once-in-a-lifetime chance to jump on it, as it was a great experience.

Before moving to Utah, I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota and nearby suburbs for essentially 20 years. I graduated in Spring 1999 from the University of Minnesota, with degrees in mathematics and computer science.

I had a great time as an undergraduate. I marched in the Minnesota marching band, and I have a few thoughts and pictures about my experiences. Besides "just" being in the band, I was also a member of the Kappa Alpha chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, and was a member of the hockey band during my tenure at Minnesota. Note that while at the University of Utah, I helped form a Tau Beta Sigma (the sister organization to Kappa Kappa Psi) colony, and am now an associate member of the newly installed Omicron chapter.

My job as an undergraduate was working as a Teaching Assistant for the Computer Science Department for two years. I graded and led recitation sections for CS 3316 (Scheme) for five quarters, and was a TA for CS 5107 (Graphics I) my last quarter.

My first summer in Minnesota, I worked with Prof. Maria Gini (my advisor), and a number of graduate students to design a robot to participate in a competition at the 1997 AAAI conference. I had a great time. At the end of the summer I got to go along to the conference, where I spent the entire week working on last minute code changes to tweak our robot to work correctly in the new environment. I didn't see much of either the conference or my bed...

After my second and third years at the U of MN, I was a Teaching Assistant at the Summer Science Program, which is a astrophysics camp for bright high school sophomores and juniors. This is a great science program for high school students, and I actually attended the program myself in '94. This program has traditionally been held at the Thacher School in Ojai, California, though it moved in 2000 to the Happy Valley School. In 2001, they convinced me to come back and be a TA for one more year. However, I have to stop doing returning since when I respond to e-mails it is getting unwieldy to sign "Chris Wyman, SSP '94, '98, '99, '01" any more years, and my signature will wrap to the next line!

As far as hobbies and stuff like that, I enjoy biking, hiking, reading, chess, playing trumpet, travelling, computer games, and assorted other things. Sometimes I wish as a graduate student I had more time to partake in these activities, though I've tried hard to take time to stop and smell the roses. One hobby I can partake in easily is photography, and you've probably noticed the plethora of pictures on my web pages. You probably noticed the ones of me near the top of my homepage. I happen to really like those pictures. Other people tell me they are scary and wrong. Perhaps that just gives you some insight into my personality.

Last Modified: Sunday, December 14, 2003

Chris Wyman (wyman@cs.utah.edu)