Christian Millichap

Christian Millichap

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter!

Before diving into my love of all things cryptology (and London), I want to share a bit about myself. I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia (go Birds and Flyers!). For my undergraduate degree, I attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, a small liberal arts college pretty similar to Furman, where I majored in philosophy and mathematics. Two Dickinson & Furman Fun Facts: (1) Dr. Bouzarth also went to Dickinson and we actually had the same undergraduate mathematics advisor,  and (2) there are four professors at Furman that are Dickinson graduates - Dr. Bouzarth, myself, Dr. Friis in Modern Languages, and Dr. Freundlich in Biology. After completing my undergraduate degree, I took a year off from school and worked for Dickinson's office of institutional research for a year building and analyzing mathematical models for enrollment and retention. I then moved back to the Philadelphia area to attend graduate school in mathematics at Temple University, where my thesis work was in geometric topology (I play with shapes: knots, 3-dimensional options that can be built by gluing together polyhedra, graphs drawn on the plane or the surface of a doughnut, etc.). Since finishing my Ph.D., I spent three years as a mathematics professor at Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon before moving to Greenville in 2018 to start working at Furman. Outside of work, I enjoy running, reading science fiction & fantasy, watching movies, and playing bar trivia. My wife and I are also avid animal lovers. We have three cats and frequently help Greenville animal care with fosters and setting up adoptions. Yes, I have tons of cat pictures to share. 

Cryptology has been one of my favorite subjects to learn about and teach, and I was lucky to accidentally stumble upon this topic while in college. During my second year of college, I received an email advertising opportunities to TA academic courses at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth Camp (CTY). I applied to TA for several mathematics courses (none of which were cryptology), and received an update saying all those positions are filled but I could TA for a cryptology course. My reaction was, "sounds cool, what is cryptology?" I ended up TA-ing cryptology for two summers at CTY, and then, I was a lead instructor for the course for the eight following summers. So, my introduction to teaching actually came through cryptology, and I absolutely loved it - connections could be made to a wide variety of high school and undergraduate mathematics, students naturally become engrossed in the puzzle-solving aspects of codebreaking, one can design creative competitions and scavenger hunts for students to work in teams on codebreaking, and there was a rich historical landscape surrounding the topic. I was immediately hooked, and I knew that once I was a college professor, I would find ways to keep teaching this topic!

Why this MayX?

Creating and running a historical cryptology study away course had been on my "academic bucket list" since the end of graduate school. Travel has been a major part of my life. My family frequently traveled all over the USA and Europe when I was growing up. As a research mathematician, I have had opportunities to travel to mathematics conferences across the globe. I love trying new foods, wandering around new cities, and adventuring through public transit. At the same time, I knew that I wanted to find ways to teach cryptology to undergraduates. Once I learned about Bletchley Park and saw that teachers from the USA had brought classes to Bletchley Park, I thought, hey I can do this too!  After several COVID delays, Dr. Woodard and I finally got to run Breaking Codes & Winning in MayX 2023, and it was an absolute blast. I loved living in the middle of an international, vibrant city for a couple weeks, and I got to know students in a completely different way than normal classes. I originally didn't think we would plan to run this again in MayX 2025 since I've been on sabbatical during Spring 2025, but it was too rewarding an opportunity for both faculty and students to delay an extra couple years!

Looking forward to...

3) Visiting Cambridge: I have never been to Cambridge and it is a new part of our Breaking Codes program. I enjoy visiting new places with others, and I'm excited to learn more about Alan Turing's story through our walking tour in Cambridge!

2) Group meals in London: London is a major international city, and one can find food from across the world. In particular, London features several large food halls and markets where one can find dozens of (reasonably priced) food stalls and there are large tables for communal eating. I love being able to try different foods, while chatting with everyone in this informal social setting. It's also really fun to people watch in these huge markets, especially if you find a good seat. Some of my favorite food halls/markets in London are Mercato Metropolitano, Seven Dials Market, Boxcar Shoreditch, and the Borough Market. 

1) Bletchley Park: This is the main highlight of our trip where we get to visit the huts were the codebreakers worked, learn about how Bletchley Park developed into a complex intelligence factory in a span of just a few years, see how codebreaking intelligence played a direct role in WWII events, and so much more! Even though I've been to Bletchley Park three times, there is always more to see and more to learn at a deeper level. For instance, I only have a vague idea of how the Lorenz cipher (a German cipher machine used by the German high command during WWII) works and how the allies broke it, though there are a fair amount of details on this procedure at Bletchley Park. I'm particularly excited for our trip this year since we have both a guided tour and an educational workshop, which we didn't have in 2023!