Matt Baker received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1999 and was promoted to Full Professor at Georgia Tech in 2011.  He has authored over 40 research papers as well as an AMS research monograph, writes a popular mathematics blog, and is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.  In 2017 Matt was awarded a Simons Fellowship in Mathematics.  Matt’s enthusiasm for teaching has won him numerous awards, including a Georgia Tech CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Award and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award.  Matt currently serves as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Georgia Tech College of Sciences. He is also the 2019-2020 MAA Southeastern Section Lecturer.

Tim Chartier is a professor of mathematics and computer science who specializes in data analytics.  He consults with ESPN, the New York Times, the US Olympic Committee and teams in the NBA, NFL and NASCAR.  Tim also oversees 70 student researchers who supply analytics to Davidson College sports teams.  Beyond authoring books such as When Life Is Linear: From Computer Graphics to Bracketology and Math Bytes: Google Bombs, Chocolate-Covered Pi, and Other Cool Bits in Computing, Tim has worked on Google and Pixar educational initiatives.  He’s served as Vice President of the MAA and is currently the section representative to the Congress of the MAA for the Southeastern Section. In February, Tim will begin his term as chair of the Congress of the MAA.  Tim's authorship, research, and scholarship have been recognized with an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and the Mathematical Association of America's Henry L. Alder Award, Daniel Solow Author’s Award, and  Beckenback Book Award. 

Dr. Lisette de Pillis is the Norman F. Sprague Jr. Professor of Life Sciences and a Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. She received her PhD in mathematics from the University of California Los Angeles. Lisette was Director of the Harvey Mudd College Global Clinic Program prior to being elected department chair, and served as chair from 2014 through 2019. Lisette has been recognized for her multidisciplinary research excellence with the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Distinguished Scholar Award from the Argonne National Laboratory. She is also a HERS-CBL Clare Boothe Luce Leadership in STEM Scholar and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. 

Lisette’s research focuses primarily on creating mathematical models to gain insight into immune-related diseases, such as type I diabetes and certain forms of cancer. She has also worked in numerical linear algebra, numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics, parallel computing, and algorithm analysis. She believes that to succeed in interdisciplinary work, it is essential to cooperate across disciplinary boundaries. Her current projects involve collaborations within academia, medicine, and biotechnology. These projects cover a range of questions from developing new mathematical approaches for understanding cell differentiation to developing mathematical models that can help improve treatments for type I diabetes. 

Courtesy of People Behind the Science

Matthew G. Jones is Mathematics Department Chair and Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in STEM Education (CISE) at CSUDH. He has taught more than twenty different classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels using Inquiry-Based Learning. His research is in mathematics education and in inquiry-based learning, and he has led workshops for more than 200 teachers and more than 150 college instructors. He has 14 peer-reviewed journal publications, and he is or has been PI or Co-PI on grants totaling over $5 million. He also finds time to enjoy the company of his wife and two daughters.

Bob Prior is math professor and department chair at Norco College—in the Riverside Community College District—and the author of textbooks for trigonometry and developmental math. This past year, Bob led a team of RCCD math faculty through the five stages of AB 705 grief—shock, denial, anger, depression, and acceptance—to the five stages of reality—do we hafta, yes we hafta, buy-in, commitment, and ownership—and ultimately to an overwhelming urge to help someone ... anyone! Bob brings nearly 40 years of teaching experience to today’s conversation.

Katherine Stevenson is a professor of Mathematics at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) where she has taught since 2001.  She earned her B.S. from Mount Holyoke College in 1989 and her Ph.D. from The University of Pennsylvania in 1994.  Her research interests focus on Algebraic Geometry, particularly inverse Galois problems for curves.
She has 25 years of experience teaching mathematics and received the CSUN Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008.  From 2009 to 2018 she was the director of the CSUN Developmental Mathematics Program, managing a program that served 3000 entering freshmen each year with an annual budget of over $1 million.   During that time the program transformed from a one-size-fits all, non-college credit bearing sequence of courses into a program with several different pathways to and through general education mathematics with a focus on students’ majors, interests, and careers.  This work was in part funded by a $2.3 million dollar grant from the Gates Foundation to Stevenson. 

In 2016, Stevenson was the Co-Chair of the CSU Quantitative Reasoning Task Force, an intersegmental and interdisciplinary group that developed a consensus report recommending a coherent pathway for quantitative reasoning training in California’s public K-16 education segments. This report was part of what motivated the CSU to eliminate remedial education in Fall 2018. 

Since 2015, Stevenson has partnered with the Los Angeles Unified School District to implement a fourth year math course for students who would not otherwise have taken math as seniors.  The course serves over 2000 students in 60 high school classrooms, helping them to transition into college level mathematics and statistics courses.

Stevenson has served on the organizing committee of two Critical Issues in Mathematics Education conferences at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI),  and serves on the MSRI Education Advisory Committee.  She is chair of the American Mathematical Society’s Committee on Education and serves on its Scientific Policy Committee.

.Elizabeth Thoren first became involved with IBL teaching as a graduate student teaching assistant at the University of Texas at Austin. After earning a PhD in 2009, she spent six years at University of California, Santa Barbara as part of their Center for Inquiry and has been teaching at Pepperdine University since 2015. She has taught a spectrum of lower division courses using IBL, from honors courses geared towards first-year math majors, to general education courses for non-STEM majors, and foundational courses for future elementary teachers. Elizabeth has served as a Workshop Leader with the Academy of Inquiry Based Learned since 2017, as well as a guest Associate Editor for the PRIMUS special issue on Teaching Inquiry.