About Me

Email: dougensley@gmail..com

Brief bio: Originally from Huntsville, AL, I inherited a love of mathematics from Mrs. Dorothy Wendt at Grissom High School's, and then I attended the University of Alabama  Huntsville, majoring in mathematics with a minor in computer science and extra philosophy classes when I could get them. From there I went to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University to study mathematical logic and combinatorics. 

In June 2022, I retired from my Pennsylvania teaching position (at Shippensburg University) and moved to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. I continue to work part time for the Mathematical Association of America as Director of the MAA OPEN Math project (with funding from the National Science Foundation, DUE-2111260 and DUE-2111273), which provides online, teaching-focused professional development to college mathematics instructors and seeks to learn effective ways for this to lead to institutional change. I am also a current member of the AMS Committee on Education -- that's me in the suit in the photo outside the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.

Before 2022, I taught college mathematics for over 30 years and created innovative curriculum and pedagogy in many courses. My teaching interests lie primarily on the use of technology for student engagement, particular with abstract mathematical concepts, but at Shippensburg (a very teaching-focused, undergraduate-only program), I taught just about everything we offered: calculus, statistics, discrete math, linear algebra, abstract algebra, modeling, numerical analysis, algorithms, CS theory, etc, etc to the tune of 39 different courses in 29 years.

My research training  is in mathematical logic and discrete mathematics -- the things that sit in the intersection of pure mathematics and theoretical computer science. I have led many undergraduate research projects in these areas over the years, and I am slowly catching up on publishing some of these results now that I have a little time to think. During my teaching career I was fortunate to receive several honors, including the CMU Graduate Student Teaching Award, SU faculty member of the year, the MAA EPADEL Crawford Award for Distinguished Teaching, the MAA Certificate of Meritorious Service, and the International Conference on Technology in College Mathematics award.

As a professor at Shippensburg University, I led many strategic efforts, including chairing the University's Academic Master Plan committee, improving many aspects of new student orientation, and creating new courses and curriculum. During my five years as mathematics department chair, Shippensburg improved its placement testing processes (and results) and developed an innovative Data Science curriculum, both during a period of hiring freeze and significant budget reductions.

In my role as Deputy Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America (2016-18), I was responsible for over 20 MAA programs, including a multi-million dollar portfolio of federal grants, overseeing MAA member communities, and supporting the work of various committees and special projects. I served as interim Director of Competitions during the 2016-17 academic year, and I am currently doing the same sort of work as Director of Competitions at MAA in the 2024-2025 academic year.