Teaching

Current teaching (at Stanford University):

  • Calculus of a Single Variable (Math 19-20-21) sequence, head instructor, 2018-19.

Previous courses taught at Stanford University:

  • Math 19: Differential Calculus, Summer 2018.
  • Calculus of a Single Variable (Math 19-20-21) sequence, head instructor, 2017-18.
  • Calculus of a Single Variable (Math 19-20-21) sequence, head instructor, 2016-17.
  • Calculus of a Single Variable (Math 19-20-21) sequence, head instructor, 2015-16.

Previous courses taught at Yale University:

  • Math 120: Calculus of Several Variables, Spring 2015.
  • Math 115: Calculus of a Single Variable II, Fall 2014. This class was taught as a flipped classroom. I also served as the assistant course director and helped plan instructor training in August 2014.
  • Math 112: Calculus of a Single Variable I, Fall 2013.
  • Math 354: Number Theory, Spring 2013 (grader for Alex Kontorovich).
  • Math 120: Calculus of Several Variables, Fall 2012.
  • Math 115: Calculus of a Single Variable II, Fall 2011.

Awards:

  • VPTL Innovation Grant 2017-18: grant obtained from the Office of the Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning at Stanford University to create and implement an online precalculus "refresher" for Stanford students. This online course on the OpenEdX platform is a mix of videos (created with a co-instructor) and worksheets to helps students brush up on their skills before starting calculus.
  • VPTL Winter 2017 Grant, 2017: grant obtained from the Office of the Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning at Stanford University to create and implement the first calculus placement diagnostic for the Stanford Mathematics Department. The diagnostic helps incoming calculus students assess which calculus course they should start with and what pre-calculus topics they should refresh before the quarter starts.
  • Prize Teaching Fellowship, 2013 and 2015: nominated by members of Yale College, "the Prize Teaching Fellowships recognize outstanding performance and promise as a teacher." All Yale Ph.D. students who serve as Teaching Fellows or Part-time Acting Instructors in the preceding year are eligible, with roughly 5-15 fellowships awarded each year. More information is available here.

Summer Undergraduate Math Research at Yale (SUMRY), 2014 & 2015

In the summer of 2014, along with a small group of Yale post-docs and graduate students, I helped design and initiate Yale's first organized undergraduate research program in the mathematical sciences, co-created by Professors Sam Payne and Amanda Folsom. In the summer of 2015, I served as co-coordinator of the program along with Nathan Kaplan, under the direction of Sam Payne.

Both years, this internal program attracted twice as many applicants as available positions and addressed the demand from Yale undergrads for more research opportunities. Each year, we had roughly 15-20 students (ranging from rising sophomores to rising seniors), working in ~6 groups on projects in number theory, algebraic geometry, graph theory, game theory, and auction theory. Students gave weekly presentations on their work to other participants in the program, as well as presenting at a regional one-day REU conference and MAA MathFest (2014 and 2015). From the two years, the program has yielded at least 12 papers that have been (or will be) submitted for publication in professional journals.

In the summer of 2014, I served as a graduate student mentor for a group of students working in number theory, specifically in the study of partitions, with Amanda Folsom. These students defined a generalization of m-ary partitions, called M-sequence non-squashing partitions. They were able to establish numerous combinatorial interpretations, an exact formula, Ramanujan-like congruences, and asymptotic growth for the non-modular generating functions of this new family of partitions. In particular, they recovered Mahler and Erdos's asymptotic for m-ary partitions using new methods and developed previously unknown asymptotics for the number of factorial partitions of a number and many other general families that have not been systematically studied. They presented their results at multiple conferences, including MAA MathFest in August 2014, and recently submitted this paper for publication.

In the summer of 2015, Nathan Kaplan and I mentored three students working to find an exact formula for the number of 10-arcs in the finite projective plane. They were able to completely classify all 151 superfigurations on 10 points and produce realizability of each of those superfigurations in projective planes over finite fields. In addition, they successful implemented an algorithm of Glynn to calculate the exact desired formula. These results are currently being written up and will be submitted for publication soon.

Yale Center for Teaching and Learning: Fellow, 2012 - 2015

As a fellow at the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning (formerly the Yale Teaching Center), I have led numerous workshops that provide support and teacher training for graduate students and post-docs at the university. These workshops ask that participants think critically about their teaching, what they do well and how they can improve, while providing strategies for effective and engaging classroom interactions. In addition to leading workshops, fellows also provide one-on-one consultations for graduate students in all fields aiming to be better teachers.

Workshops facilitated:

  • Teaching with Technology: Flipping the classroom
  • Fundamentals of Teaching Mathematics and its applications (3-part series)
  • Fundamentals of Teaching Engineering (3-part series)
  • How to Write a Syllabus For an Undergraduate Course (2-part series)
  • Managing Difficult Personalities in the Classroom
  • Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
  • Quantitative Reasoning Series (3-part series)