The Computational Science Laboratory at Eastman Kodak's research labs is a group of mathematicians and mathematically-inclined scientists and engineers who work as internal consultants. I have spent my entire career at Kodak—11 years now—as a member of this group. When a new research project begins, if mathematical modeling will be required, a member of our lab is asked to sign on. Such projects often last for years. We also work on shorter projects in collaboration with other engineers and chemists. For example, if an engineer wants to understand how some fluid waves affect a production process, we might spend a month or two developing a model of the phenomenon. Many of us have standing collaborations with other scientists in the labs, experts in some field, and we work regularly with them on problems in their fields. Also, we are known throughout the labs as experts in mathematics, so people often drop by our offices for help with short mathematical tasks—to solve some ODE's, to help formulate a system of algebraic equations, to perform a regression analysis, to give our opinions on the best software for a particular application, to find the roots of an equation, to compute eigenvalues, etc.

My specialty is differential equations. These days, I am working on fluid dynamics problems.

One of these is the problem of dynamic surface tension in fluid curtains. The chemically active part of photographic film consists of silver halide crystals and dye-forming chemicals in gelatin.