The environment and vibe of a community is based on the people who make it come alive. Campersand values and prioritizes its community because they are the ones who teach, model, and mentor our kids to think and to reflect on their potential while also reminding them to be playful.

ASHLEY AHLIN

Ashley grew up in a family of mathematicians and caught the bug early.  Her own participation in math contests, a local math circle, and a math/science magnet school sparked her love of both doing mathematics and developing communities of mathematicians.  After a teaching stint at a math/science magnet high school and finishing her Ph.D. in mathematics, she began sharing her love of math with her own kids, which led to starting local math festivals, circles, MathCounts teams, and summer camps.  Her favorite mathematics revolves around symmetries, which she’s looking forward to teaching about this summer.

RUBY AIDUN

Ruby just completed her sophomore year at Columbia University where she is an materials science student. Her favorite classes last year were her computer science courses because the assignments were often fun logic puzzles in disguise. When Ruby isn’t stuck studying she spends her time walking, reading, or watching baking videos on YouTube.

WENDY K. TAM CHO

Wendy is a Professor at the University of Illinois where she has appointments in Political Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Asian American Studies, Law, and at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Mathematics is the tie that holds together her eclectic interests. She has loved math all her life, but really discovered its beauty when she started teaching math to her sons, who love math even more than she does! Her sons wanted to do math with other kids, so she began her own math circle and started teaching at math summer camps. Her mathematical journey has been immensely fulfilling and has taught her that sharing mathematical beauty (especially with children) is the surest and quickest way to multiply its appreciation and joy.

ANITA CHOU, Camp Director

Anita, coming from an electrical engineering background, is deeply interested in math and science education. She holds a special interest in helping radically accelerated kids meet their needs. Towards that end she sits on the board of and is actively involved in several local gifted advocacy organizations. She is excited to be on the forefront of coordinating resources, local and afar, and working closely with families in staging Campersand 2018.

CHAIM GOODMAN-STRAUSS

Chaim has never lost his childhood sense of mathematical wonder and playfulness, as you will see from the shelves in his office! He first learned of his future research speciality, aperiodic tiling, through the amazing and influential writings of Martin Gardner.

Born and raised in Austin, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Texas in knot theory, Chaim has been at the University of Arkansas since 1994.  With John H. Conway and Heidi Burgiel, he co-authored The Symmetries of Things. He produces large-scale sculptures  based on his mathematical interest in form. Since his student days, Goodman-Strauss has been intensively engaged in mathematical outreach to the broader community, starting the Saturday Morning Math Group for high school students (still continuing, at UT) and producing the Math Factor podcast and radio segment (2004-2012). He has several years experience working with highly accelerated children at summer math programs. His graphic work can be seen at mathbun.com.

PAUL HILDEBRANDT

As an artist, educator, and co-founder of Zometool Inc., Paul works to deepen and disperse knowledge of deep mathematics through workshops, conferences, art installations, and more.  Paul organized and guided the Zometool intellectual capital team to realize the user-friendly version of the Steve Baer’s 31/61-zone systems, the Zometool, and has been an integral part of the company, working on everything from the manufacturing process and product design to producing books and videos explaining the system.  He is currently articulating Marc Pelletier’s insight – “Zometool is a 61-dimensional hypercubic lattice projected into 3-space” – into “All You Need is Cubes”.  

TANAY MEHTA

Tanay is a doctoral student in theoretical computer science at Northeastern University. As a kid, he was enticed by mathematics’ ability to explain how the world works and the creativity required to solve puzzles. Tanay enjoys teaching, and  hopes to pass on the same type of guidance and passion that he received from others in the math community. When not doing math, Tanay enjoys discovering new music and exploring the city with his camera in hand.

BURTON NEWMAN

Growing up, Burton always wondered what it was like to be a mathematician working on a math problem and why such brilliant minds would dedicate themselves to this sort of activity. What do they see in it? What do they value? He decided the best way to answer these questions was to become a mathematician himself. He gained the most insight into these questions while working as a counselor for two summers at the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS) at Boston University. There, he realized the importance of immersing oneself in whatever culture one is trying to understand. Today he spends his time working as a data scientist and playing with the newest toys in math ed tech.

ROLFE SCHMIDT, Academic Director

Rolfe has been playing with math since he was young enough to be a camper, always looking forward to school breaks when he would have uninterrupted time with his books. It wasn’t until he began teaching mathematics to his sons that he realized how much fun the field had to offer. Seeing the benefits of a social community he created and modeled such a setting for his and other mathy kids. He founded a math circle in Seattle and directed and taught at several math camps. His math background is foundational to his research in distributed systems and cryptography at Zouggla, where he is founder and CTO. When not playing with math or writing code, Rolfe is outside running, hiking, or skiing with his family.