Sian Zelbo, J.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Teaching, Program in Mathematics
Teachers College, Columbia University
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Research on the Historical Discourse Between Mathematics and Society
sez2105@tc.columbia.edu
My research
My research
I am a mathematics education researcher and intellectual historian whose work examines the historical relationship among education, politics, and culture. Centering schools as key sites of cultural and political struggle, my research explores how debates over education—including mathematics curriculum, teaching, and access to schooling—both reflect and shape broader conflicts over social hierarchy, citizenship, and the purpose of education. My historical scholarship ranges from nineteenth-century tensions between traditionalist and imported European ideas about mathematics and its teaching to the New Math movement of the 1960s and 1970s. My recent work examines the struggle over racially integrated public schooling in Reconstruction-era New Orleans, showing how political actors used violence, propaganda, and the press to manufacture opposition to school integration and reshape the boundaries of civic life.
Browse below to see my areas of research, past and present.
My research examines how schools become sites of broader cultural and political conflict, and how political actors use debates over education to mobilize support for larger agendas.
My research examines the historical development of mathematical expertise in the United States, including the role of institutions, professional communities, and opportunities for advanced study in determining who gains access to mathematical knowledge and how that knowledge circulates through society.
My research examines how ideas about mathematics circulate through society and how cultural, political, and institutional forces shape what happens to those ideas as they travel.
Public Speaking and Outreach
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"Urbanization as a catalyst of fraction understanding," 48th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Santiago, Chile, August 2025.
"Public debate and the ascent and decline of the American 'New Math' reform movement (1960 to 1980)" 8th Conference on the History of Mathematics Education Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland, September 2024
"A Re-examination of the Nineteenth Century French Influence on American Mathematics Education through Textbook Author Charles Davies" 7th Conference on the History of Mathematics Education Mainz, Germany, September 2022
"Building an American mathematics community from the ground up: Artemas Martin and the Mathematical Visitor (1877-1887)" 14th Congress on Mathematics Education (Virtual) Singapore, July 2021
"A Cross-Cultural Case study of an African American Mathematics Teacher Who Studied at the École Polytechnique" 6th Conference on the History of Mathematics Education CIRM, Marseilles, France, September 2019
INVITED ACADEMIC TALKS
"Edgar J. Edmunds: The Mathematics Teacher Who Challenged the White Supremacist Movement in Post-Civil War New Orleans" Christmas Meeting and AGM, British Society for the History of Mathematics (Online) December 2024
"Mathematics Teacher Preparation at Teachers College, Columbia University: A Practice-Based Approach to Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge" Scientific Seminar, International Association of Researchers in Mathematics Didactics Mykhailo Dragomanov University, Ukraine (Virtual) December 2024
"Edgar J. Edmunds: A Historical Case Study of Race in Mathematics Education" JRME Talks Series, Journal of Research in Mathematics Education (Virtual) November 2022
"A Re-examination of the Nineteenth Century French Influence on American Mathematics Education through Textbook Author Charles Davies" Pohle Colloquium Series, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY October 2022
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT & EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH
"A Potpourri of Puzzles" Family Fridays Series, Museum of Mathematics New York, NY, November 2021
"Puzzles and Communicating Maths" Panel Discussion, Talking Maths in Public Conference (Virtual) Edinburgh, Scotland, August 2021
"Fraction Dominoes: A Workshop in Puzzle Creation" Math Buffet Series Workshop, Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival (Virtual) March 2021
Questions?
Questions?
Contact sianzelbomath@gmail.com to get more information on her research.
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