A. Michael Sheard
Rutherford Professor of Mathematics

“St. Lawrence is a very collegial place in which to work,” says Professor Michael Sheard. “It makes possible good working relationships with both my colleagues and my students.”

Sheard is a scholar with very diverse interests both within the field of mathematics and outside the world of academia, and St. Lawrence has encouraged him to pursue these broad interests. He enjoys informal conversation with faculty and students from different departments, and recently supervised a philosophy major’s independent project on mathematical logic.

Sheard received his B.A. at Yale University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He taught for one year at the University of Alaska and three years at Ohio State University before arriving at St. Lawrence—his mother’s alma mater--18 years ago. His research revolves around mathematical logic, but he has taught a wide variety of courses in the mathematics department as well as several computer science courses. He has also taught in the First-Year Program.

Sheard says his experience as mathematics department chair from 1994-2002 is something he is extremely proud of. “That was a time of great transformation for the department, and I was proud to be in a leadership role,” he says. He admires the atmosphere at St. Lawrence, which is quite different from the impersonal atmosphere of a large university, something he has experienced first-hand.

In his spare time, Sheard is an avid birder, and enjoys answering people’s inquiries into the feathered friends of the North Country.