The first multiyear project funded by National Science Foundation, this reformmethod text develops calculus in the context of scientific and mathematical questions, exploring problems centered on "messy" real-world data and integrating computers and/or graphing calculators integrated from the first class.
James Callahan earned a B.A. from Marist College and a Ph.D. from New York University.
In 1975, Professor Callahan received the Lester R. Ford Award of the Mathematical Association of America and at Smith he has received the Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award and the Sears–Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership. He has made research trips to England and France.
Callahan was the director of the Five College Calculus Project (funded by the National Science Foundation), and co–author of Calculus in Context (W. H. Freeman & Co, 1995). He wrote Geometry of Spacetime (Springer–Verlag, 2000) an undergraduate text in mathematics about relativity, as well as Advanced Calculus: a Geometric View.
Professor Callahan's interests include: geometry, dynamical systems, chaos and fractals, catastrophe theory, relativity, most areas of applied analysis and building things.