Dr. Jonah Ostroff,
Director (2015--2018), Lead Instructor (2015--2021)
Jonah is a senior lecturer in the math department at the University of Washington. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at Brandeis University in 2013 after studying at Carleton College. His research is focused on enumerative graph theory and permutation patterns, but he's also pretty into the mathematics of games and elections. He was a student of the MathILy director at the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics in 2002 and 2003, before which he thought math was only kind of okay. (He has since changed his mind.) Jonah has taught at various Math Circles for the last decade, directed the first four years of MathILy-Er, and taught at MathILy-Ers 2015--2021. He knows all the digits of 22/7.
Dr. Alice Mark,
Apprentice Instructor (2015), Lead Instructor (2016--present), Director (2019--2023)
Alice is a senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University. Her main mathematical interest is group theory, and her favorite kind of groups are reflection groups. She has assisted in several inquiry-based learning college classes, has presented at the Austin Math Circle, has worked with the University of Chicago Young Scholars Program, and was an Apprentice Instructor at MathILy-Er 2015 as well as a Lead Instructor at MathILy-Ers 2016--2024 and the Director of MathILy-Ers 2019--2023.
Dr. Corrine Yap, Apprentice Instructor (2019--2022), Lead Instructor (2023--present), Director (2024--present)
Corrine earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2023 and is currently a postdoc at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include extremal and probabilistic combinatorics and statistical physics. In her "spare time" she travels to math departments around the country to perform her one-woman play Uniform Convergence, which she began writing when she was an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College studying mathematics and theater. She currently holds the record of "most titles held in the {MathILy, MathILy-Er} organization" (PRiME in 2014--15, Apprentice Instructor 2015-22, Lead Instructor 2023, Director-Er 2024+).
Dr. Nate Harman,
Lead Instructor (2017, 2020, 2021), Apprentice Instructor (2015)
Nate is a player of board games, an eater of sandwiches, and a taker of naps. He is an avid fan of tacos, Batman, and hot sauce. He has run with the bulls, jumped out of an airplane, and has spent many, many hours pretending to be a wizard. He also does math sometimes, and after finishing his Ph.D. at MIT in 2017 allegedly studying representation theory, he postdoc-ed at the University of Chicago. He is not a college football player---or is he?! In previous summers he has taught at both MathILy and MathILy-Er, as well as at the UMass Amherst Mathematics Triple, the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, and the Research Science Institute.
Dr. Cathy Hsu, Lead Instructor (2019, 2023), Apprentice Instructor (2018)
Cathy is an Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College after finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses primarily on congruences between modular forms and arithmetic statistics, both areas of algebraic number theory. Cathy was very active in the Association for Women in Mathematics at UO and supervised several undergraduate projects related to group theory and number theory as part of the AWM Undergraduate Reading Program. While she (sadly) never attended a summer math program as a student, Cathy is excited to be back at MathILy-Er.
Dr. Brian Freidin,
Lead Instructor (2022)
Brian earned his Ph.D. from Brown University studying differential geometry and is now a faculty member at Auburn University. He did research as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois through the Geometry Lab and the Center for Complex Systems Research. He has taught at the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics and MathILys 2015--2022 and 2024.
Dr. Tom Mainiero, Instructor (2022, 2023, 2024)
Tom is a mathematics faculty member at St. Joseph's University, Long Island. He has taught inquiry-based physics labs at UT Austin and Rutgers. Trained as a mathematically-oriented physicist but---being confused about the direction of time---his interests un-specialize with the generally accepted flow of its direction, working slowly toward an "undecided major." His current interests involve a mix of geometry, topology, quantum mechanics, category theory, computer science, and the mysteries of entropy.
Dr. Noah Forman, Lead Instructor (2018)
Noah Forman is a postdoc in math at the University of Washington. He has a B.A. in math and physics from Oberlin and a math Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and was previously a postdoc at Hogwarts. Er... we mean Oxford. He studies random trees and has been maligned as a "West Coast coin flipper." He thoroughly enjoyed visiting and giving a talk at MathILy-Er in 2017, and looks forward to spending more time at the program this summer!
Natasha Ter-Saakov,
Apprentice Instructor (2023)
Natasha studied mathematics (and computer science and education) at MIT and is now a graduate student at Rutgers University. She participated in MathILy 2014 and 2015 and MathILy-EST 2019 and was an Apprentice Instructor in 2021 and 2022. When she is able to, Natasha enjoys fire spinning. At home, she can be found baking and even occasionally assembling IKEA furniture.
Kye Shi,
Apprentice Instructor (2024)
Kye has been flirting with math for as long as he remembers. In high school, he once wrote a Python script to do his math homework for him (because, geez, how
many more matrices do you want me to invert?). It wasn't until he attended MathILy in 2015 that he realized what math really was about. In 2017, he attended the IPhO in Indonesia and won a gold medal. In 2022, he graduated from Harvey Mudd College with a mathematics and computer science major and is now a graduate student at UCLA, where he uses math as an excuse to write computer programs for fun (or is it the other way around? he doesn't know). These days, Kye's favorite non-nerdy hobbies are percussion, ballroom dancing, and West Coast swing dancing. He was a MathILy Apprentice Instructor in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Karoline Dubin, Apprentice Instructor
Karoline is a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her path to math was meandering: first, she studied history in college, enticed by a seminar on the frontier; then, she worked in various roles in restaurants and catering; before that, as a design assistant for a textile and clothing company. Presently, she spends time thinking about hard spheres and percolation, learning theory and ways to reconstruct automata given partial information, all in between reading books about magical realism, art, and cooking (not exhaustive).
Taryn Trigler, Protector and Responder in the MathILy-Er Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting (PRiME FACToR 2024)
Taryn is a senior undergraduate studying mathematics and biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech and is preparing to begin a Ph.D. in biochemistry, cell & developmental biology at Emory University in Fall 2024. Her favorite mathematical fields are extremal combinatorics, graph theory, and non-Euclidean geometry. During her undergraduate years, Taryn attended the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics study abroad program and served two terms as the president of Georgia Tech's 'Club Math.' Outside of academics, she enjoys long-distance running and playing contract bridge. She attended MathILy-Er in 2019---inspiring her to continue her exploration of mathematics. (Fun fact: Taryn was MathILy-Er's 100th student!)
Noa Hunter, Protector and Responder in the MathILy-Er Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting (PRiME FACToR 2024)
Noa is a graduating senior at Auburn University where they studied mathematics. They will be starting their Ph.D. in mathematics in the fall, and they are primarily interested in algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, and related fields. They are a vegetarian and a personality test enthusiast, and their hobbies include tennis, card games (Canasta and Euchre are favorites), and embroidery. Currently, they are working on learning Spanish and getting past level 4 on the arcade game Mappy.
Dr. Aaron Fenyes, Lead Instructor (2022)
Aaron is finishing three years of geometry research at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques and starting a year of high school teaching at Phillips Exeter Academy. He led a Daily Gather at MathILy-Er during each of the past three summers, and he's excited to teach a full course this year. He loves illustration, design, music, nature, science, and computing, and has the most fun working and playing in places where they intersect with math and each other.
Max Everett, Apprentice Instructor (2021, 2022, 2023)
Max is a graduate student at The Graduate Center at CUNY, where he is studying mathematics. Thus far, he is most interested mathematically in algebra, graph theory, and combinatorics. In his free time, he enjoys board games, sudoku, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Netflix. He participated in MathILy-Er 2016 and was a MathILy-Er Apprentice Instructor in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Kimball Strong, Apprentice Instructor (2022, 2023)
Kimball is a mathematics graduate student at Cornell specializing in algebraic topology. When he's not doing math (and sometimes even when he is), he can generally be found singing or baking (or both). He's currently trying to teach himself how to swing dance while juggling (it's exactly as hard as it sounds). He was a MathILy PRiME in 2018 and MathILy-Er Apprentice Instructor in 2022 and 2023.
Rory Erlich, Apprentice Instructor (2022, 2023)
Rory is a junior undergraduate studying mathematics at Tufts University. He loved MathILy-Er so much in 2018 that he persuaded his high school math teacher to offer an inquiry-based calculus course, and was excited to return to the program. While not working on his problem sets, you might find him biking while listening to Terry Gross, gently agitating his friends and family about their inherited wealth, or taking far too long to go in board games.
Gabe Udell, Apprentice Instructor (2023)
Gabe is a student of math
who will dance and pick flowers on paths.
His school is Cornell,
which he finds to be swell;
he likes algebra, comb(inat)o(rics), and snacks.
Thea Rugg, Apprentice Instructor (2023)
Thea is a senior math major at Haverford College and will be starting her PhD in the fall, studying topology. She enjoys reading, practicing her German, and has recently taken up tap dancing. Thea has never been to MathILy-Er before, and is excited to spend her first summer in Pennsylvania.
Katherine Khiev, PRiME FACToR (2023)
Katherine loves bubble tea (but needs non-dairy milk because she is lactose-intolerant), spicy foods, getting to know people, and spending time in nature. She has recently completed her teaching credential at CSULB and will begin the masters program in mathematics with an option in education at CSULB this upcoming fall. She is super excited to learn, explore, and play with math as her first time at MathILy-Er this summer!
Cameron Gavaler, Apprentice Instructor (2024), PRiME FACToR (2023)
Cam is a first-year graduate student at CUNY. He is primarily interested in discrete mathematics but often dabbles in algebra and geometry as well. He enjoys reading and playing any kind of board, card, or video game he can find. He was a MathILy-Er PRiME FACToR in 2023.
Henry Hale, Apprentice Instructor (2020)
Henry is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago majoring in mathematics and music. He's a fan of topology, linear algebra, and the mathematics of musical tuning systems. When he's not doing math, he can often be found adding way too many notes to a chord, singing with his a capella group, UChicago Voices, or drumming a polyrhythm on random nearby objects. He was a participant in the 2017 and 2018 iterations of MathILy..
Annie Meyers, Apprentice Instructor (2020, 2021)
Annie is a teaching assistant and grader at AoPS. She earned her M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Iowa, where she was a VIGRE graduate student award recipient. Her mathematical interests include low-dimensional topology, knot theory, and algebraic topology. Between 2009 and 2017 she took forays into both education and data science, earning an M.S. in Adult and Higher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2013. From 2017--2019 she was a full-time Lecturer at a local engineering college. She plans to return to grad school for her Ph.D. in Fall 2022. Annie also loves choral music (she's an alto), sewing, knitting, reading sci-fi, and board games.
Connor Halleck-Dube, Apprentice Instructor (2019, 2020)
Connor is a graduate student at UC Berkeley working in algebra/algebraic geometry/number theory. He likes computers, fiction, strategy games, and most other nerdy things. In his free time, he has done theatrical sound engineering, and his favorite non-mathematics classes were "The Chinese Tradition" and "Control, Privacy, Security." The best mathematical vocabulary word is thrackle.
Samuel Wilson, Apprentice Instructor (2021), PRiME (2019, 2020)
Sam is a graduate student at the University of Tennessee. His main mathematical interests are in abstract algebra, group theory, and logic. Outside of math, Sam enjoys music, board games, painting, and baking bread. He was the MathILy-Er PRiME in 2019 and 2020.
Dylan Cordaro, Apprentice Instructor (2020)
Dylan is graduating this spring from the University of Chicago with a BS in Mathematics. He is most interested in analysis and probability. Outside of math, Dylan enjoys playing board games and reading books that may or may not be math related. He was a participant MathILy-Er in 2015.
Josh Mundinger, Apprentice Instructor (2019)
Josh is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He loves to listen to and play the piano, and can often be found singing Beethoven to himself. He participated enthusiastically in MathILy 2013 and was an Apprentice Instructor for MathILys 2017 and 2018.
Emi Brawley,
Apprentice Instructor (2019)
Emi is graduating this spring from Stony Brook University, where she is studying mathematics and women's, gender, and sexuality studies. Mathematically, she is mostly interested in analysis, particularly geometric measure theory; non-mathematically, she likes knitting and the Great British Bake Off. She participated in MathILy 2013.
Rebecca Rohrlich, Apprentice Instructor (2019)
Rebecca is a senior math major and computer science minor at Smith College. Her current mathematical interests are geometry, graph theory, and theoretical computer science (but really, she's into any problems that she finds cool). She went to many (non-mathematical) summer camps as a kid, and was a counselor at PROMYS last summer. She loves cats, swimming, drawing, and writing.
Lucas Van Meter,
Apprentice Instructor (2017, 2018)
Lucas is a fifth year graduate student in mathematics at the University of Washington. His research is in the area of algebraic geometry, in particular computer vision and moduli problems. Lucas leads the second year math circle at UW and has mentored undergraduates in the Washington Experimental Mathematics Lab; he taught at MathILy-Ers 2017 and 2018.
Arianne Hermida, Apprentice Instructor (2018), PRiME (2016, 2017)
Ari graduated with a BA in mathematics from the University of Washington in 2017 and is in a postbaccalaureate mathematics program while applying to graduate schools. She is most interested in probability, group theory, and social choice. Between high school and college, she served in AmeriCorps as a math tutor. She now does research in UW's history department. She was the PRiME in the 2016 and 2017 instances of MathILy-Er and an AI at MathILy-Er 2018.
JD House, Apprentice Instructor (2019)
JD is beginning his PhD in math in the Fall, likely working in either geometry or combinatorics (or probability, statistics, or maybe topology... we'll say undecided). As of the Spring, he is working on his final year at Arizona State University and will graduate in May. JD loves board games and problem-solving, and he's excited to share the wonders of math with more students!
Evan Forletta, Apprentice Instructor (2018)
Evan is a third year transfer student at UC Santa Cruz, where he studies all the pure math he can get his hands on. Some of his favorite things include: singing, coffee, his letter/number color synesthesia, and watching his little brother perform in band competitions. This quarter he's gonna see if he can't learn some algebraic geometry, as well as try to go to bed earlier (one could debate which is harder---the uninterrupted hours that span 10pm to 4am are a hard-to-resist time for mathematics...). Aside from just learning mathematics, Evan's real mission in life is to share that math with other people (i.e. be what they call a teacher). Trust us: this kid really looks forward to meeting you all this summer.
Hannah Turner, Apprentice Instructor (2017)
Hannah is a second year graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in knots and 3-manifolds. Hannah was a counselor at PROMYS in 2015 and has supervised independent studies by undergraduates through the Directed Reading Program at UT since 2016.
Kate Borst, Apprentice Instructor (2016)
Kate will be a senior this upcoming fall at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, PA, where she studies mathematics. She's most interested in geometry, but also enjoys combinatorics and graph theory. Last fall, she studied abroad with the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. She loves to travel, scuba dive, and sing with her beloved a cappella group, The Treblemakers.
Michael Daellenbach, Apprentice Instructor (2016)
Michael is entering his senior year at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. He is a math major, computer science minor. He's most interested in algebraic number theory, and thinks combinatorics is pretty cool, too. His favorite math problem is the Collatz problem. Michael has been involved in various summer camps every year since he was six years old. When he isn't doing math, Michael's usually playing board games or watching The Walking Dead.
Margaret Zheng, PRiME (2021)
Margaret is a rising junior majoring in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is still in the phase of exploring lots of different types of math, but her current favorites are discrete math and statistics. Besides math, she enjoys listening to music, improvising (not just) Heart and Soul on the piano, painting, and making cute doodles of stick figures (and people, sometimes). She is also a MathILy-Er 2018 alumna.
Audrey Baumheckel,
PRiME FACToR (2022)
Audrey has a B.S. in mathematics from California State University, Fresno. She is entering into the Master's program at the same school this fall. She particularly loves graph theory, knot theory, and number theory, and cannot settle into one particular area just yet! When not thinking about interesting mathematics, she likes board games, crochet, embroidery, baking, and reading (though many of those have math hidden within them).
Jennifer Diamond,
PRiME (2022)
Jen is going to be a senior undergraduate studying mathematics and economics at Westfield State University. Her areas of interest include statistics and actuarial sciences. Outside of mathematics, Jen can be found playing soccer, crocheting, looking at pictures of her cats, and winning board games. She is excited to be a part of MathILy-Er for the first time as the PRiME for this year!
Pavani Rannulu, PRiME (2018)
Pavani ("Pavi") will be graduating this May from the University of Maryland with a BS in Mathematics and a minor in Physics. She spent her childhood in Sri Lanka, where she participated in national and international math competitions. As an undergraduate, she fell in love with Combinatorics and Number Theory. Outside of mathematics, Pavi loves animals, surfing and travelling.
Ashley Corkill, PRiME (2015)
Ashley is a mathematics major and part of the Honors College at the University of Arizona. She is excited about tabletop (and other) games and historical embroidery and weaving.
MathILy, MathILy-Er, and MathILy-EST are projects of the nonprofit organization Mathematical Staircase, Inc..