Tag Archive for Leidy

Wesleyan Mathematics Faculty Train Area School Teachers

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Wesleyan’s Associate Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen teaches an Intel Math class Aug. 11 at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center. Wesleyan’s Assistant Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen teaches an Intel Math class Aug. 11 at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center.

Wesleyan’s Associate Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen teaches a math class Aug. 11 at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center. (Photos by Olivia Drake)

This month, the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center is once again hosting its K-8 Math Institute for 29 school teachers from Vernon and Hamden, Conn. The 80-hour program aims to increase teachers’ mastery of math concepts as well as their confidence with math.

Sharon Heyman, a mathematics education specialist from the University of Connecticut, works with teachers at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center.

Sharon Heyman, a mathematics education specialist from the University of Connecticut, works with teachers at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center.

Wesleyan Associate Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen is teaching the institute along with Sharon Heyman, a mathematics education specialist from the University of Connecticut. This is the fifth time the pair has taught the course together. The institute includes the content-intensive, 80-hour Intel Math course over the summer as a foundation for teachers, several follow-up workshops during the school year for advancing teaching practices and arts integration strategies, and two professional learning community sessions a year in the form of Math Potlucks.

Green Street Director Sara MacSorley said this year’s course is going very well.

“As a group, the participating teachers are strong in math and really engaged in the material,” she said. On this particular day, a Friday afternoon with temperatures soaring into the 90s, “there are lively discussions about fractions at each table.”

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Trustees Award Brown, Leidy with Tenure

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The Wesleyan Board of Trustees recently awarded tenure to two faculty members. They are:

Lois Brown, professor of African American studies, professor of English, came to Wesleyan last fall from Mount Holyoke College where she was Elizabeth Small Professor of English. At Mount Holyoke, where she began teaching in 1998, she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004, and was director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts for five years. A literary historian, she focuses on culture, identity, race and gender in 18th and 19th century African American writing. She is author of three books and numerous articles, essays, reviews, exhibition guides, and has curated several exhibitions. She earned her B.A. from Duke University and her Ph.D. from Boston College.

Constance Leidy, associate professor of mathematics, has taught at Wesleyan since 2007. She specializes in knot theory, which is a field of low dimensional topology. She has been awarded two NSF grants, organized an NSF funded conference on “knot concordance and homology cobordism” held at Wesleyan in 2010, and has organized three other conferences. She is co-author of nine articles, has delivered 10 invited conference addresses, given 20 colloquia and seminar talks, and 15 research talks. Before coming to Wesleyan she was the Rademacher Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her bachelor’s degree is from Tulane University and her Ph.D. is from Rice University.

NSF Supports Leidy’s Knot Theory Research

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Constance Leidy, assistant professor of mathematics, received a $130,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematics Science to support her research on “Noncommunative Techniques in Knot Theory” through Aug. 31, 2014.

Leidy Receives NIH Grant for Knot Theory Project

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Constance Leidy, assistant professor of mathematics, received a grant for $130,436 from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematics Science on Sept. 9. The grant will support a project titled “Non-commutative Techniques in Knot Theory” through August 2014.