MAA  Mathematical Association of America

Seaway Section

Jeff Weeks fell in love with geometry in 12th grade when he read the book Flatland. While an undergraduate at Dartmouth College he bounced back and forth between math and physics, eventually settling on math and going on to study topology at Princeton University with Bill Thurston and his students, whose colored-chalk approach to mathematics Jeff loved. After teaching at Ithaca College, Jeff resigned to be a full-time Dad for several years. From there he became a free-lance geometer/cosmologist, with support from the Geometry Center, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation, as well as smaller gigs for science museums. In recent years Jeff has focused on developing software that lets non-specialists explore beautiful and surprising worlds in 2, 3 and 4 dimensions.

Dr. Abayomi is a Clinical Asst. Professor of Data Science at the School of Mathematics and Statistical Sciences (SoMSS) at Arizona State University, and the Head of Science for Gumbel Demand Acceleration/Betaside Recording - Software as a Service (SaaS) and digital media recording companies. Dr. Abayomi was the first and founding SVP of Data Science at Warner Music Group (WMG) and the Director of Monetization at Warner Media. He has been a Professor of Industrial Engineering, Probability, and Statistics & Environmental Science at Georgia Tech, Universidad de Cuenca, and Binghamton University. He holds a Ph.D. in Probability and Statistics from Columbia University and Post-Doctorates from Duke and Stanford Universities. Dr. Abayomi serves on the Advisory Council at the Ivan Allen College at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ranthony A. Clark is a National Science Foundation Ascending Postdoctoral Fellow, Phillip Griffiths Assistant Research Professor, and Computational and Mathematical Science Fellow for the Center for Computational Thinking at Duke University. She earned a PhD in Mathematics in 2018 from the University of Iowa and her research interests include applied algebraic topology, data science, commutative ring theory, math education, and the history of Black mathematicians. Dr. Clark is deeply invested in quantitative justice, that is, using mathematical tools to address societal issues rooted in inequity. Her current work in quantitative justice involves applications of mathematics and data science to electoral redistricting. She was a Berlekamp Postdoctoral Fellow for the Fall 2023 Semester program on Algorithms, Fairness, and Equity at the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) and currently works with the Quantitative Gerrymandering Group in the Department of Mathematics at Duke University.

Shay Fuchs earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics and physics, as well as his teaching diploma, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During this time, he also taught mathematics at two local schools in Jerusalem. In 2008, he completed his Ph.D. in Symplectic Geometry at the University of Toronto. Since 2010, Shay has been a full-time teaching faculty member at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Shay's work focuses on student-centered pedagogies, with a particular emphasis on Inquiry-Based Learning and Active Learning in both small and large undergraduate mathematics courses. He is also the author of a textbook on Introduction to Proofs and has played a key role in redesigning several courses at UofT and elsewhere to incorporate more effective and evidence-based teaching practices.