Christine Sample

Associate Professor of Mathematics

I have always enjoyed mathematics. I studied mathematics and computer science in college and subsequently took a job as a computer programmer in New York City after graduation. I eventually found my way to applied mathematics, a quantitative discipline that combines my affection for mathematics with a desire to gain greater insight into everyday life. I am thrilled to be teaching at Emmanuel and find it truly gratifying to share my appreciation of the subject with students. 

Ph.D., M.S. in Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University; B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science, Boston College

  • MATH1101 College Algebra
  • MATH1103 Precalculus
  • MATH1105 Topics in Contemporary Mathematics
  • MATH1111 Calculus I
  • MATH1112 Calculus II
  • MATH1121 Applied Mathematics
  • MATH2107 Differential Equations
  • MATH3101 Real Analysis
  • A. M. Berezhkovskii, C. Sample and S. Y. Shvartsman. Formation of morphogen gradients: Local accumulation time. Physical Review E, Vol. 83, No. 5, 051906, 2011.
  • C. Sample and A. A. Golovin. Morphological and chemical oscillations in a double membrane system. SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, Vol. 71, No. 2, 622-634, 2011.
  • P. V. Gordon, C. Sample, A. M. Berezhkovskii, C. B. Muratov and S. Y. Shvartsman. Local kinetics of morphogen gradients. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 108, No. 15, 6157-6162, 2011.
  • A. M. Berezhkovskii, C. Sample and S. Y. Shvartsman. How long does it take to establish a morphogen gradient? Biophysical Journal, Vol. 99, 59-61, 2010.
  • C. Sample and S. Y. Shvartsman. Multiscale modeling of diffusion in the early Drosophila embryo. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107,No. 22, 10092, 2010.
  • C. Sample and A. A. Golovin. Nonlinear dynamics of a double bilipid membrane. Physical Review E, Vol. 76, No. 3, 031925, 2007.
  • C. Sample and A. A. Golovin. Formation of porous metal oxides in the anodization process. Physical Review E, Vol. 74, No. 4, 041606, 2006.

In 2017, Benjamin Allen and Christine Sample, Assistant Professors of Mathematics, were awarded a three-year $285,161 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study evolution as a mathematical process. Their project may aid the understanding and treatment of cancer, which can be seen as unwanted evolution occurring inside the body. Dr. Allen was the lead author of an article on the topic recently published in Nature, a prestigious multidisciplinary scientific journal.

My research interests lie in the application of mathematics to the physical world.  I am especially interested in how mathematics can be used to understand problems in biology.  My dissertation looked at how patterns form in two very different contexts:  (1) the spontaneous formation of nanoscale pores in metal oxides and (2) the formation of periodic patterns in lipid bilayers.  My postdoctoral work at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University was in the field of developmental biology.  We created mathematical models to explore mechanisms by which initially equivalent cells are patterned into a group of cells with different functions.