Robert and Barbara McOwen

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Scottish

Robert McOwen

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Robert McOwen Robert McOwen began Scottish country and highland dancing in Berkeley, California, in 1973 and moved to the Boston, Massachusetts, area in 1979. He received the Teaching Certificate of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS) by examination in Scotland in 1980 and became a member of the Scottish Dance Teacher's Alliance in 1987.

He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. His areas of interest are partial differential equations, especially linear and nonlinear elliptic equations on noncompact domains and manifolds; functional analysis, especially weighted Sobolev spaces; and applications to differential geometry, especially to the conformal scalar curvature equation, which is a semi-linear elliptic equation relating the scalar curvatures of two conformally-related Riemannian metrics. He is a Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Mathmatics at Northeastern University.

Robert and Barbara McOwen He has performed highland dancing with many groups and in many venues (including a tour of Scotland with the Strathspey and Reel Society of New Hampshire in 1996), and has directed concerts with featured performers such as Jean Redpath and Alasdair Fraser.

Since 1999, Robert has choreographed and danced in Bonnie Rideout's national touring show, A Scottish Christmas, with Jen Schoonover. His tartan is Dress Ancient Campbell of Argylle.

Among the camps and workshops Robert has taught is the Mendocino Folklore Camp. He has taught, competed in, and performed highland dancing at various events across the United States.

Robert resides in Arlington, Massachussetts, with his spouse Barbara, an accomplished fiddler. Robert plays bass fiddle.

Robert's articles and publications include

Dances Robert has taught include Balmoral Strathspey, Bratach Bana, Gae Gordons, Hebridean Weaving Lilt, Last of the Lairds, MacDonald of the Isles, Reel of the Royal Scots, The Buchan Eightsome Reel, The Pinewoods Two-Step, and The Shepherd's Crook.