Notes on Contributors
William Baker
of Hostos Community College (City University of New York) teaches a full range of mathematics course, from developmental mathematics through to calculus sequences. As a member of the teaching-research team, he is interested in how educational research can inspire creativity in his teaching methodology and his students. He believes that a guided-discovery method should be used flexibly to encourage participation and to give students a feel for the beauty of mathematics. As a teacher he struggles to balance the need to cover the curricula yet leave enough time and space for students to reason with and discover mathematics.
Stephen R. Campbell
is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. His scholarly focus is on the historical and psychological development of mathematical thinking from an embodied perspective informed by Kant, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty. His research incorporates methods of psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience as a means for operationalizing affective and cognitive models of math anxiety and concept formation.
Bronislaw Czarnocha
of Hostos Community College (City University of New York) is a teacher-researcher and a quantum physicist turned mathematics educator. His present interest is in developing teaching-research (TR) into a full-fledged instructional methodology in the context of Aha! pedagogy as well as in understanding and expanding the application of bisociative creativity to various domains of intellectual and artistic endeavors. He was co-recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop new approaches to incorporating indivisibles into calculus instruction. He was also awarded a Socrates grant (now called Erasmus) funded by the European Union for international professional development of teacher-researchers.
Olen Dias
is a professor of mathematics at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York. She participated in two CUNY-wide developmental mathematic projects and likes to teach from developmental mathematics through to calculus sequence. She was a co-founder of supplemental instruction at the college and is a member of Teaching Research Team of the Bronx. She is involved in creating co-req. model course, flipped classes, and development of Open Educational Resources (OER) material for pre-calculus. Dr. Dias incorporates different pedagogical approaches in her classes for improvement of teaching and learning.
Gerald A. Goldin
is a distinguished professor of mathematics education, mathematics, and physics at Rutgers University, New Jersey. His research includes over 200 publications embracing these three fields. He directed several major STEM education projects, including New Jersey’s Statewide Systemic Initiative and MetroMath: The Center for Mathematics in America’s Cities. He is a recipient of the Humboldt Research Prize for work in quantum physics. His current educational research focuses on affect and engagement in mathematical learning and problem-solving. He also co-authored (with Jennifer T. Doherty) two illustrated storybooks for young children, The Mouse of Gold (2006) and The Fierce and Gentle Wolf (2011), published in Scotland by Serafina Press.
Peter Liljedahl
is a professor of mathematics education in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. He is the former president of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) and is the current president of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG), as well as a senior editor for the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (IJSME). Peter is a former high school mathematics teacher who has kept his research interest and activities close to the classroom. He consults regularly with teachers, schools, school districts, and ministries of education on issues of teaching and learning, assessment, and numeracy.
John Mason
is professor emeritus at the Open University and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He spent 40 years at the Open University writing distance-learning courses in mathematics and in mathematics education. He is the author of more than 25 books and numerous papers on teaching and learning mathematics. He engages in mathematical thinking with an eye to locating and refining useful tasks for bringing to the surface the human powers that underpin mathematical thinking, and the ubiquitous themes of mathematics. He is particularly interested in the role played in learning mathematics by mental imagery and attention.
Benjamin Rott
did his PhD in 2012 in Hanover, Germany, was a postdoc at the University of Education Freiburg until 2014 and an assistant professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen until 2017. He is now a full professor for mathematics education at the University of Cologne, Germany. His research interests are mathematical problem-solving, beliefs, and giftedness (including creativity).
Edme Soho
is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Hostos Community College (City University of New York). He is an applied mathematician with experience using and instructing others on the use of mathematical statistical and computational modeling tools in multiple fields. He enjoys collaborative, interdisciplinary research with professionals of diverse backgrounds. His primary research interests lie in mathematical modeling, dynamical systems, dynamics of infectious diseases, population dynamics, epidemiology, and immunology.
Hector Soto
of the Public Policy and Law Unit of the Behavioral & Social Sciences Department at Hostos Community College (City University of New York) has been referred to by many community activists as a true educational warrior because of his lifetime commitment to the service of communities of color and progressives. He is a founder of the Center for Neighborhood Leadership and Community Learning Partnership, a national organization that promotes the development of community change degree programs. Prof. Soto has worked to expand the debate in intellectual circles over civic engagement. He is also a member of the Hostos Community College research team, studying creativity in education to improve academic interest and motivation among Hispanic, minority and female students in the criminal justice system and how it affects their lives.
Hannes Stoppel
did his PhD in 2019 in Münster, Germany. From 2000 to 2013 he was a teacher of mathematics, physics, and computer science at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Gelsenkirchen. From 2013 to 2018 he was a teacher at the institute for mathematics and its education at the University of Münster and is now teacher of mathematics, physics and computer science at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Gelsenkirchen. He attends to the provision of scholarships of outstanding students. His research interests are beliefs and creativity.
David Tall
is emeritus professor of Mathematical Thinking at the University of Warwick in Coventry and visiting professor at Loughborough University London. His publications include How Humans Learn to Think Mathematically (CUP, 2013), Advanced Mathematical Thinking (Kluwer, 1991), three classic textbooks with Ian Stewart on Foundations (2nd ed., OUP, 2014), Algebraic Number Theory (4th ed., CRC Press, 2015) and Complex Analysis (2nd ed., CUP, 2018), software for Graphic Calculus and over 250 papers in mathematics and mathematics education. His recent interests are in developing a comprehensive theory of long-term growth of mathematical thinking including cognitive, affective, historical, cultural, and technological aspects.
Ron Tzur
is a professor of mathematics education at the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Education and Human Development. He completed his PhD at the University of Georgia (Athens). His research focuses on children’s construction of early number and fractional knowledge, on teachers’ professional development, and on linking mathematical thinking/learning with brain processes. He has been serving as a principal investigator on the four-year, $3 million, NSF-funded project, “Student-Adaptive Pedagogy for Elementary Teachers.” This project implements and studies a professional development intervention designed to shift upper elementary teachers’ mathematics teaching toward a constructivist approach and measure impact on students’ learning/outcomes.
Lauren Wolf
is an assistant professor of mathematics at Hostos Community College (City University of New York). Dr. Wolf is sought after for her unique teaching style and activist approach. She teaches everything from developmental algebra to graduate-level mathematics. She taught in the prison for seven years and has experience in many different teaching environments but found her place in the South Bronx. Her research interest includes teaching math to prison inmates as well as understanding how her students in the South Bronx relate to mathematics and encouraging them into undergraduate STEM research.