Who are the people that make MathILy happen?
Mostly it's students (perhaps you?), but there are also
instructors (former instructors here, and for current instructors see just a bit below).
We are assisted by the members of our Advisory
Amalgam.
The program itself is a project of the nonprofit organization
Mathematical Staircase, Inc. which has a board of directors.
dr. sarah-marie belcastro,
MathILy director and Lead Instructor ()
sarah-marie earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University
of Michigan in 1997 after majoring in mathematics and astronomy at
Haverford College. Among her research areas, she is most
passionate about topological graph theory. sarah-marie has been
faculty at several institutions, ranging from small colleges to
large universities, and she's been a major believer in
discovery-based learning since her teacher training at Michigan.
In addition to teaching at the college level, sarah-marie teaches
enrichment classes at the Art of Problem
Solving. sarah-marie taught as a senior staff member at the
Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics for 11 summers and
co-directed that program for 4 summers. She is the inaugural director of MathILy and has taught there since 2013. She wrote the
introductory textbook Discrete
Mathematics with Ducks, which has much of the same
tone students will find at MathILy. You might run into sarah-marie
at HMMT Feburary.
Dr. Hannah Alpert,
Lead Instructor
Hannah earned her Ph.D. from MIT in 2016 specializing in geometry and is now a math researcher at IDA CCR-La Jolla. She authored/co-authored 6 mathematical research papers before starting graduate school, and has written several problems that have appeared in the AMC 8; her coding strength is writing Python code that writes TikZ code that draws complicated pictures automatically. Hannah has taught at MathPath and at Mathcamp and at the Boston Math Circle and at the first 10 instances of MathILy. She thinks almost everything is too sweet, including limes, but excluding lemons.
Dr. Brian Freidin,
Lead Instructor
Brian earned his Ph.D. from Brown University studying differential geometry and is now a faculty member at the University of San Diego and affiliated with Auburn University. He did research as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois through the Geometry Lab and the Center for Complex Systems Research. He has taught at the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics and MathILys 2015--2024.
Dr. Thomas Hull, Lead
Instructor
Tom earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1997 and specializes in
the mathematics of origami, which has applications ranging from
solar panels to automobile airbags to self-assembling polymers. He
has earned tenure at one college and one university (so far) and
has used more and more inquiry-based learning in college classes
as he has advanced in his career. Tom taught at the Hampshire
College Summer Studies in Mathematics for 15 summers, and at MathILys 2013--24.
Dr. Alice Mark,
Lead Instructor
Alice is a senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University. Her main mathematical interest is group theory, and her favorite kind of groups are reflection groups. She has assisted in several inquiry-based learning college classes, has presented at the Austin Math Circle, has worked with the University of Chicago Young Scholars Program, and was an Apprentice Instructor at MathILy-Er 2015 as well as a Lead Instructor at MathILy-Ers 2016--2024 and the Director of MathILy-Ers 2019--2023.
Frank Lu,
Apprentice Instructor
Frank is a graduate student at Harvard University, where he will likely be studying algebraic number theory. Besides math and piano, Frank also enjoys writing and playing games of various types with friends. He attended MathILy in 2018, was the FRANK (Facilitates Rumination, Activating New Knowledge) in 2020, and an Apprentice Instructor in 2023 and 2024.
David Gonzalez,
Apprentice Instructor
David studied mathematics at Stanford University and is now a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley. He enjoys talking and thinking about the foundations of mathematics, logic, language and computation. A big step in his mathematical journey was attending MathILy in 2014. When not doing math, he enjoys hiking (really being outside in general) and watching the very worst movies in existence (and occasionally watching good ones too). He was an Apprentice Instructor in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Natasha Ter-Saakov,
Apprentice Instructor
Natasha studied mathematics (and computer science and education) at MIT and is now a graduate student at Rutgers University. She participated in MathILy 2014 and 2015 and MathILy-EST 2019 and was an Apprentice Instructor in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. When she is able to, Natasha enjoys fire spinning. At home, she can be found baking and even occasionally assembling IKEA furniture.
Nadav Kohen,
Apprentice Instructor
Nadav graduated from the University of Iowa with a double major in mathematics and computer science. He's now a graduate student at Indiana University after a stint as a software engineer. When he has free time, he often spends it thinking about graphs, games, topology, algebra or cryptography. When he has free time with a computer, he often writes computer proofs or studies models for computation. When he has free time and needs to move, he enjoys fencing, ultimate frisbee and getting lost in forests. He participated in MathILy in 2015 and was an Apprentice Instructor 2019--2023.
Jonathan Hillery,
Apprentice Instructor
Jon is a math graduate student at UCLA, after previously studying at UC Berkeley and Cambridge University. He is interested in representation theory, a subject he was first introduced to while a student at MathILy in 2016 and 2017, or any math that comes with very symmetric pictures. His favorite conversation topics are linear algebra and urban transit. His hobbies include ultimate frisbee, watching basketball, and playing jazz with other UCLA MathILy pals.
Jessie Tan,
Apprentice Instructor
Jessie is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Her interests include number theory and combinatorics. She atteneded MathILy in 2014, then spent some more summers at Ross and PROMYS, as a student and as a counselor. In her free time, she likes to make polyhedral models with a variety of materials.
Jan Fedyszyn,
PRiME FACToR (Protector and Responder in the MathILy Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting)
Jan (pronounced Yawn) is a rising Junior at Brown University studying math and potentially literary arts. They attended MathILy 2022 and MathILy 2023 and are more excited about returning to MathILy as staff than they've ever been about anything ever (except maybe going to MathILy 2022). Jan's hobbies involve drumming for a comically large number of performances, creating awful drink combinations in dining halls, and breaking seemingly functional software in ways no one thought possible.
Vera Choi,
PRiME FACToR (Protector and Responder in the MathILy Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting)
Your local Vera can be found studying Hanabi documentation, climbing any structure with feasible handholds, or rethinking her favorite Pokemon. A simple call of "Anyone want to join my chamber music group?" can be used to draw Vera out from any distance, and she can often be found practicing {violin, wood flute, piano}, especially if there is a body of water nearby. At the end of the summer, Vera will return to roost at Tufts University for another year.
Lillian Stolberg,
PRiME FACToR (Protector and Responder in the MathILy Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting)
Lily is graduating from the University of Rochester this spring and will be attending a math PhD program in the fall. Her favorite areas of math are algebra and representation theory. Outside of the classroom, she enjoys baking cheesecake, building Legos, and cross stitching as well as playing field hockey and belly dancing. However, she is very adamant about her utensil selection, and has not used a spoon (unless it is the only available utensil) since eighth grade.
MathILy, MathILy-Er, and MathILy-EST are projects of the nonprofit organization Mathematical Staircase, Inc..