Panelists: Walter Whiteley (York University), Zohreh Shahbazi (University of Toronto), Siobhan Roberts (Fields Institute), Rachel Allen (Toronto Catholic District School Board), Patrick Robinson (Validere)

Bios:

Siobhan Roberts. Siobhan Roberts is the author, most recently, of Genius at Play, The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway. While writing the Conway biography, she was a Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, and a Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. In 2017, she won the JPBM Communications Award for Expository and Popular Books, bestowed by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America. As a journalist, she writes for Newyorker.com, Nautilus, Quanta, and The Walrus. Siobhan is the author of King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, The Man Who Saved Geometry (Bloomsbury, 2006) and of the related documentary The Man Who Saved Geometry, for TVOntario’s The View From Here (September 2009).

Walter Whiteley. Walter Whiteley earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics at MIT, and went on to serve as an Instructor in Mathematics and Humanities at Champlain Regional College (CEGEP) for 20 years. From 1994 until last year, he served as Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at York University, and a member of the Graduate program in Education. As a practicing geometer, Walter practices spatial reasoning daily and applies spatial reasoning in Structural Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry, Computational Geometry and Mathematics Education. He is a strong believer that spatializing any problem adds insights into the concepts and solutions, and is essential to understanding and solving some key problems.

Zohreh Shahbazi. Zohreh Shahbazi is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream at the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences and the Centre for Teaching and Learning of the University of Toronto Scarborough. She is also the Coordinator of the Math and Stats Learning Centre. She obtained her Ph.D. in pure mathematics from the University of Toronto in 2004, and received the City of Toronto Women in Mathematics Award in 2000 and GMW Women in Science and Mathematics Award in 2001. Her research interest is in the fields of Symplectic Geometry and Mathematics Education.

Rachel Allen. With over a decade of teaching experience, Rachel has taught almost every grade from 1-12, teaching in Trenton and Toronto in both English and French. A former Mathematics curriculum lead at the TCDSB, Rachel has recently taken on a new portfolio as the Leader of Experiential Learning at the board. She is currently working on her Masters at Ontario Tech University and worked as a Research Assistant creating online math videos to help first-year business students. Rachel enjoys learning outside of the classroom through CrossFit, highland and step dancing, and Pipe Band Drumming and loves volunteering time each summer at a Girl Guides Summer Camp.

Patrick Robinson. Patrick is a data scientist and mathematician, holding a PhD and MSc in Mathematics from the University of Toronto. His current work involves modelling and optimizing the physical properties of a blend of liquid hydrocarbons, and the related propagation of error. He previously worked in the financial sector, validating short-term trading strategies. Patrick built an introductory data science course for BrainStation for which he was the lead educator for the first two cohorts, and is an occasional lecturer at the University of Toronto.

Moderator: Judy Mendaglio.

Bio:

Judy Mendaglio has had a varied career teaching mathematics and mathematics education at all levels, primary to post-secondary. She is currently President-Elect of OAME and continues to serve as co-chair of the Fields MathEd Forum. Judy is very pleased to moderate this panel discussion - it gives her great pleasure to read and discuss books about math.