Skona Brittain has an M.A. in Mathematics from Princeton University,
an M.S.E. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and
a B.A. 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 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 five years, she has also been coaching the Santa Barbara chapter of the Southern California ARML team. The 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.
Other Presenters
Eckart Meiburg received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1985 from
the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, where he grew up.
After a post-doc at Stanford University, Eckart held professorships at
Brown University (in the Division of Applied Mathematics) and USC,
before joining the UCSB faculty in 2000.At UCSB, Eckart has been the chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (2003-2007) and is involved with the Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) program, a collaboration between the mathematics department
and several engineering departments. His main area of research is fluid mechanics, specifically computational fluid dynamics.Eckart has over 100 publications and numerous awards, including some for teaching as well as research, but his main claim to fame at the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is that he is the father of Alex.
Larry Gerstein received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame in 1967, having graduated from Columbia College in New York City before that. Since 1967, he has been on the UCSB faculty, and he has also had visiting faculty positions at MIT, Notre Dame, and Dartmouth.
Aside from his research papers, Larry has written two mathematics books: Introduction to Mathematical Structures and Proofs (Springer, 1996); and Basic Quadratic Forms (Amer. Math. Soc., 2008). The former text should be accessible to some members of the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse.
Larry's research area is number theory, and his outside activities include playing the violin and the trombone.
Richard Eager grew up near Washington, D.C. and attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where he was a member of their high-ranking A-League ARML team all four years of high school, as well as a two-time USAMO qualifier.
After receiving a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from Caltech in 2005, he is now a PhD student in high-energy Theoretical Physics at UCSB.
Richard has experience coaching for both ARML and the USAMO. He is interested in coaching members of the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse for the AIME and USAMO next year.
