Marisa Debowsky,
Executive Director
Marisa’s work at Mathcamp combines her passions for mathematics, community building, and education. Once a teenage math nerd herself, Marisa’s own history is similar to many of the students in the program: she pursued an educational path that allowed her to graduate college at age 16 and complete her M.S. in math at age 18. She began teaching at Mathcamp in 2006 and became our first full-time employee in 2008.

Marisa has steered Mathcamp's growth from a small non-profit into a thriving organization, and officially stepped into the role of Executive Director in 2016. She works not only with students and families, but also with the alumni and donors in the extended Mathcamp community, and serves as a connector and a mentor, both at camp and beyond.

In addition to her role as ED, Marisa continues to be involved at camp: teaching topological graph theory (and other topics in combinatorics) and organizing activities that mostly involve singing – Shabbat dinners, Song Swaps, and Mathcamp’s a cappella group, the Kernel.

Kevin Carde,
Deputy Director
Kevin has felt at home at Mathcamp ever since his first summer teaching there in 2011. Almost immediately, he began volunteering for Mathcamp as a software developer while juggling his responsibilities teaching calculus and working on his PhD at the University of Michigan. After finishing his PhD in 2014, Kevin officially signed on to work year-round for Mathcamp.

Kevin's main mathematical interests are combinatorics and complex analysis, both of which he regularly teaches at camp, but he also shares his non-mathematical interests with Mathcamp. He brings a collection of Chopin piano sheet music and is always eager to accompany student singers, violinists, and anyone else. As a frequent puzzler (solving the New York Times and Guardian crosswords almost every day and the MIT Mystery Hunt every year since 2006), Kevin is often involved in writing the Mathcamp Puzzle Hunt.

Maya Saran,
Program Director and Faculty
Maya is a mathematician working in the branch of mathematical logic known as descriptive set theory. Her research concerns results that follow from natural assumptions about ideals of compact sets. She earned her PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2010 under Sławomir Solecki, has published in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, and has presented her work at the MIT Logic Seminar, MAMLS at Harvard, the CUNY Logic Workshop, and EPFL in Switzerland. As founding head of mathematics at Ashoka University in India, Maya designed the major and minor programs, introduced inquiry-based courses, and created a university-wide course in mathematical thinking.

As Program Director of Canada/USA Mathcamp, Maya applies quantitative analysis, using admissions and enrollment data to refine the selection process and modeling staffing, budgets, and logistics to plan each summer and compare candidate host campuses, based on varying factors. In her role as Faculty, she designs and teaches courses spanning logic, analysis, and topology, making topics from current research accessible to talented students. When not preparing her courses, she enjoys staying current with research in mathematical logic through attending conferences and seminars in the New York area.

Ania Łeń,
Director of Community and Program Development
Ania first came to Mathcamp in 2015 as a student and instantly fell in love with it. After her first summer at camp, she started her own summer program (MBL) and continued coming back to Mathcamp: as a camper, a JC, and a summer co-director.

Ania’s biggest passion is organizing educational initiatives: since high school, she has been involved in running national and international mathematical competitions, olympiads, workshops and camps. She served as an early member of the year-round organizing team for Mathcamp, and now returns to the organization as our inaugural Director of Community and Program Development: combining deep program design work with community stewardship, ensuring that as Mathcamp grows and changes, it remains authentically Mathcamp.

At camp, she often organizes outdoor activities, such as hikes, runs, or late-night walks. Ania also loves travelling – she spent one summer at virtual Mathcamp in Mexico!

Bruce Bluett,
Executive Assistant
Bruce supports Mathcamp and its parent organization, the Mathematics Foundation of America, across their year-round operations. He brings two decades of nonprofit administrative experience spanning education, healthcare, and the performing arts, working behind the scenes to strengthen mission-driven institutions and bring clarity and structure to complex work. When not administrating, Bruce is most likely losing a battle of wills with his cats or somewhere in the middle of his nth rewatch of Deep Space Nine.