Skona Brittain has an MA in Mathematics from Princeton University,
an MSE in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and
a BA in Theoretical Physics from UCSB’s College of Creative Studies.
She has taught mathematics and/or computer science at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, SBCC and UCSB.Since 1999, Skona has been running SB Family School, a private math enrichment program, where she coaches math teams of 4th-12th graders, mostly homeschoolers,
as well as designs and teaches “creative mathematics” classes and summer camps.
For the past decade, she has also been coaching the Santa Barbara chapter of the Southern California ARML team. The High School Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is an extension of that group.Skona participated in Great Circles 2009, a workshop about Math Circles sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at U.C.Berkeley in April 2009. In the Summer and Fall of 2009, Skona and SB Family School collaborated with the UCSB Department of Mathematics to start the UCSB Math Circle, for Junior High School students. As the organizer of the Santa Barbara Math Ellipses, Skona was invited to MSRI's Circle on the Road workshops in Houston in March 2011, in Puerto Rico in March 2013, and at Courant in NYC in October 2016.
Other Presenters
Max Weiss received a BA, MS and PhD in Mathematics from Yale University, Cornell University and the University of Washington, respectively.
For most of his career, he was a Mathematics Professor at UCSB, where he started the College of Creative Studies math program.Max's connection to the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is that he was Skona’s favorite math professor when she was in college. Both Max and CCS profoundly changed Skona's views on mathematics and education.
Brian Satzinger grew up in Missouri and went to college at the University of Missouri, where he majored in Computer Engineering. In the Fall of 2010, he came to graduate school at UCSB, to work in their new Robotics Laboratory, with Professor Katie Byl and Little Dog.
Brian's connection to the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is that he and Skona are both in the Ocean Ducks, where he swims the same stroke as Skona, albeit an order of magnitude* faster.
Mike Ludkovski was born in Russia, moved to Israel when he was 10, and then to Canada at age 15. He went to college at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, where he majored in mathematics, and then earned his PhD in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University in 2005. After a few years teaching in the math department at the University of Michigan, in 2008 he joined the Department of Statistics and Applied Probability at UCSB, where he was recently granted tenure. He is also currently associated with the College of Creative Studies math program at UCSB. His research interests focus on applying probability to financial mathematics.
During his summers in Michigan, Mike taught financial math in the Michigan Math and Science Scholars Summer Camp. As a high schooler, he attended several summer math camps himself!
Mike's connection to the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is that he and Skona went to the same graduate school and hence recently met at an alumni dinner.
* base deliberately left unspecified
