Teaching and Mentorship

University coursework

Freshman/Sophomore level core classes: Secondary school teaching track course:
  • History of Math
Undergraduate elective class: Upper division math major course:
  • Differential Geometry
Graduate topics course:
  • Riemann Surfaces
(*) Instructor for course
      (otherwise was TA)
(**) U.C. Davis Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award
(***) Created course

Image attribution: Screenshot of a mathlet on the MIT OpenCourseWare site demonstrating amplitude and phase of a second order differential equation. (cc)

^ return to top

Math Circles

Davis Math Circle
Founding Director 2006-2007(*), Co-Director 2007-2008, Instructor 2006-2008

Classes taught: Geometry of SET!, Polygonal holonomy on a sphere, Math through games

(*) Special Distinguished Service Award given to Explore Math 2006-2007 from department.

(Sites designed for Explore Math and Math Circle: http://exploration.math.ucdavis.edu http://exploration.math.ucdavis.edu/mathcircle)
Invited speaker for:
^ return to top

Projects supervised

  • Canada/USA Mathcamp 2007:
    • Polygonalizations of Surfaces
    • The Human Knot Game
      (co-supervised with Marisa Debowsky)
  • REU 2005:
    • Symmetries of Cayley Graphs
    • Nielsen-Schreier Theorem
    • Geometric and Topological Interpretation of the Wirtinger Presentation
      (co-supervised with Mike Williams)
  • COSMOS 2003:
    • Euler characteristic of surfaces
    • Chess strategies on a torus
    • Origami vs. Ruler-and-compass constructions
a photo of one of my student's projects

Photo Credit: Lu Yongquan, a participant of Canada/USA Mathcamp. This modular origami sculpture, which he constructed, models a tiling of a genus 2 surface using PHiZZ units. If the tiling is interpreted as one by regular Euclidean polygons, then it achieves negative discrete curvature. (Instructions for PHiZZ units)

^ return to top

Instructor mentorship and TA training

Canada/USA Mathcamp
Mentor teaching advisor ("meta-mentor") 2007

Mentored new instructors and provided one-on-one feedback on teaching for staff in general.
TA Consultant
2006-2008

Co-taught required university-wide TA Orientation summer workshop.
^ return to top

I am indebted to the following people and places for teaching me how to teach and inspiring me to teach better:

  • Loren Larson
    (who impressed upon me the importance of motivating anything brought up in a lesson)
  • MIT Experimental Studies Group
    (where I worked as an Associate Instructor for a few years)
  • Nirav Shah
    (my co-teacher and co-conspirator throughout college)
  • Michael Artin and Gian-Carlo Rota
    (whose care, generosity, imagination, and clarity continue to provide inspiring models)
  • Canada/USA Mathcamp
    (where I have taught for the past seven years)
  • Misha Kapovich
    (who impressed upon me the importance of well-chosen examples and whose semi-Russian-style seminars trained me as a mathematician)

Photo Credit:Laura Zehender
Teaching the Kakeya Needle Problem at Mathcamp 2007 in Colby College, ME