Who are the people that make MathILy-Er happen?
Mostly it's students (perhaps you?), but there are also
instructors (see 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. Corrine Yap, MathILy-Er director and Lead Instructor ()
Corrine earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2023 and is currently a postdoc at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include extremal and probabilistic combinatorics and statistical physics. In her "spare time" she travels to math departments around the country to perform her one-woman play Uniform Convergence, which she began writing when she was an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College studying mathematics and theater. She currently holds the record of "most titles held in the {MathILy, MathILy-Er} organization" (PRiME in 2014--15, Apprentice Instructor 2015-22, Lead Instructor 2023, Director-Er 2024+).
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.
Dr. Brian Freidin,
Lead Instructor
Brian earned his Ph.D. from Brown University studying differential geometry and is now a faculty member at 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, MathILys 2015--2024, and MathILy-Er 2022.
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.
Noa Hunter, Apprentice Instructor
Noa is a mathematics PhD student at University of Notre Dame. They are primarily interested in algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, and related fields. They are a vegetarian and a personality test enthusiast, and their hobbies include tennis, card games (Canasta and Euchre are favorites), and embroidery. Currently, they are working on learning Spanish and getting past level 4 on the arcade game Mappy.
Lixin Zheng,
Apprentice Instructor
Lixin is a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Before that, he studied math at Georgia Tech, roaming the same haunted halls of the math building as Corrine. He is interested in number theory, group theory, and anything algebra-related (including combinatorial games, apparently). Outside of math, Lixin plays a lot of card games like bridge, speedruns video games, plays a double-reed instrument often confused with the oboe, and reads fantasy novels.
Nathan Bickel, PRiME FACToR (Protector and Responder in the MathILy-Er Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting)
Nathan is a senior at the University of South Carolina studying math and computer science. He is graduating in May and plans to attend graduate school in the fall with a likely focus on discrete math and graph theory, an area which he did research in at Iowa State University last summer. He has experience tutoring, grading, and TAing from undergrad and is excited to get more experience with supporting inquiry-based learning this summer.
Matthew Walloch, PRiME FACToR (Protector and Responder in the MathILy-Er Environment, Facilitator of Academics and CriTiquer of wRiting)
Matthew used to be a senior at Georgia Tech, studying mathematics and biology, before his untimely graduation this May. He has done research in computational graph theory and simulating bacteria communication. On the pure side, he enjoys algebraic topology, knot theory, and functional analysis. Outside of math, Matthew plays various board games; was a fullback/wing for the GT Club Rugby Team; plays contrabass and guitar; and was told he tends to misuse semicolons. He currently has less hair than the photo suggests.
MathILy, MathILy-Er, and MathILy-EST are projects of the nonprofit organization Mathematical Staircase, Inc..