2023 Staff

The 2023 Directors, Faculty and Academic Coordinators:

• Ania Łeń is the Program Coordinator at Mathcamp and one of the summer directors. She enjoys travelling, hiking, playing tennis, squash and badminton, organizing educational events and drinking coffee.
• Kayla Wright is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota and will be one of the academic coordinators this year. Her mathematical interests include algebraic combinatorics, cluster algebras and representation theory. She enjoys playing pickleball, cooking, and dancing.
• Eric Stubley works at Google doing things with computers and numbers. He enjoys math that is spread across number theory and algebra. He likes change ringing, reading science fiction, experiment with herbal tea blends, cooking all sorts of foods.
• Marisa Debowsky is the Executive Director of Mathcamp. Her mathematical interests include Topological Graph Theory and other combinatorial pursuits; outside of math, she enjoys puzzles, ritual coffee brewing, and songwriting. She has been teaching and singing at Mathcamp since 2006.
• Mark Krusemeyer has recently retired from his position as a Professor of Mathematics at Carleton College. His mathematical interests include algebra, combinatorics, number theory, and problem solving. His non-mathematical interests include recorder playing, hiking/scrambling, duplicate bridge, and table tennis. He has been a faculty member at Mathcamp since 1997.
• Mia Smith has been coming to Mathcamp since 2010 and is currently a summer director. During the year, she is a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Her mathematical interests include algebraic combinatorics and graph theory. Outside of mathematics, she enjoys trail running, rock-climbing, and crossword puzzling.
• Misha Lavrov teaches and does research at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Mathematically, he specializes in graph theory and Ramsey theory. Non-mathematically, he drinks many different kinds of tea, studies foreign languages, reads poetry, and bakes cookies. Misha was a student at Mathcamp in 2006 and 2007, and has been teaching here since 2014.
• Noah Schweber is a math teacher at Proof School in San Francisco; before that he was a postdoc at UW-Madison focusing on mathematical logic, in which he continues to do research. His non-mathematical interests include unicycling, frisbee, terrible puns, and foot juggling. At camp, he prefers the nickname "Steve."
• Susan Durst has been working for Mathcamp since 2008, and enjoys teaching classes in abstract algebra and mathematical logic. She received her PhD from Rutgers in 2013, and is currently a math faculty member at Proof School in San Francisco. Her nonmathematical interests include west coast swing dancing and choral music.
• Tim Black has been around Mathcamp since 2005. He received his PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Chicago in 2019. His interests include computational complexity theory, coding theory, and discrete math, and their connections to group theory. He also enjoys volleyball, pickleball, hiking, Morris dancing, change ringing, and puzzles.

Mentors:

• Arya Vadnere is a grad student at SUNY Buffalo, where he studies hyperbolic geometry and geometric group theory. His non-math hobbies include disc golf, board games and anime.
• Ben Dees just graduated from JHU. Mathematically, he's mostly interested in analysis; at camp he likes to talk about pathological counterexamples. Nonmathematically, he likes to bake, rock climb, dance, and embroider.
• Charlotte Trainor is a grad student at the University of British Columbia, studying harmonic analysis (although she likes all things analysis). She enjoys loud music, being Canadian, cool weather, books about magic, and social strategy games.
• Della Hendrickson is a grad student at MIT studying computational complexity. They enjoy square dancing, puzzles, and pandas.
• Ian Seong is a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies algebraic graph theory, specifically distance-regular graphs; he is interested in general combinatorics and Olympiad style problem-solving as well. Outside of math, he enjoys playing and watching soccer and basketball.
• Kevin Chang is a grad student at Columbia working on algebraic geometry and number theory. He likes watching movies, listening to music, and playing the guitar and dislikes getting mad when his favorite teams lose.
• Krishan Canzius is a grad student at UPenn studying logic (model theory together with a bit of combinatorics). Outside of math he enjoys reading, running, baking, and playing the sort of video games that require spreadsheets.
• Narmada Varadarajan is a grad student at the University of Toronto doing combinatorics-adjacent research. Non-mathematically, she likes to cook, read horror novels, and solve crosswords.
• Neeraja Kulkarni is a grad student at Caltech. Her mathematical interests are harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, and her non-mathematical interests include reading, philosophy, and going for walks.
• Raj Gandhi is a grad student at Cornell university, studying Schubert calculus. He enjoys music and writing.
• Tanya Brailovskaya is a graduate student at Princeton in Applied and Computational Mathematics. Her research lies in random matrix theory, however she is fascinated by random phenomena of many kinds. Outside of math, she likes to dance, bike, watch movies, read, study foreign languages and travel.
• Travis Dillon is a grad student at MIT. His mathematical interests include discrete and convex geometry and combinatorics. He likes involved cooking projects, lyrical prose, and wandering through places new and old.

JCs:

• Allison Tsypin is a sophomore at McGill University, completing a BSc in Honours Mathematics. She enjoys crafts, logic puzzles, and languages.
• Alyona Nefyodova is finishing her third year at Higher School of Economics in Moscow, studying math and education. She likes ice skating, dancing, comparing languages, asking random questions, having deep conversations, and writing ridiculously wrong messages.
• Arushi Mantri is a rising sophomore at MIT, where she is studying mathematics and computer science. She enjoys reading, doing her nails, dancing, solving the NYT daily crossword, puzzle hunting, playing Stardew Valley, drinking boba, and owning way too many clothes.
• Eleni Persinger is a rising sophomore at Yale studying mathematics. She enjoys playing the violin, collecting coins, eating ice cream, drawing, crocheting, folding origami, and doing anything remotely crafty.
• Kalina Jasińska just finished her Computer Science degree at the University of Cambridge, where she mainly focused on theoretical computer science. She enjoys cooking, baking, walking, and drinking hot chocolate.
• Nathan Smith is a rising sophomore at Brown University studying math. He enjoys playing Ultimate Frisbee, going for meandering walks, and listening to new genres of music.
• Piotr Kuc is a freshman at Jagiellonian University, he studies general math and graph theory on the side. This year's JC; loves running, moving and adrenaline.
• Preston Bushnell just finished his first year at Harvard, where he's studying math. He's into board games, singing, and making paper snowflakes.
• Ryan Lee is a freshman at Brown University studying math, computer science, and music. He enjoys playing board games, creating piano covers, and making different kinds of milk tea.

Camp Nurse:

• Alba DelaCruz is this year's full-time camp nurse. She enjoys long bike rides, reading, cooking, and board games.

Generally Helpful Person:

• Gloria Krusemeyer has been helping out at Mathcamp for many years. As our Generally Helpful Person, campers will see Gloria running craft projects, organizing dancing events, and using an engineering-oriented brain to solve real-world problems.