Meet the Anja Greer Leadership Team

Kevin Bartkovich, Conference Director
Phillips Exeter Academy

Kevin moved to Exeter in the fall of 2009, where he began teaching in the math department and was named Director of the Conference in 2018. Prior to life at PEA, Kevin was a founding faculty member at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, where for 17 years he taught and worked with colleagues to write precalculus and calculus textbooks. In between, Kevin and his wife JD went on a 10-year adventure in Uganda where they established Christ School Bundibugyo, a boarding secondary school located in a remote village near the border with Congo. Kevin and JD are licensed foster parents in New Hampshire, and they currently have nine children.

Christine Belledin
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics

Christine joined the NCSSM mathematics department in 2006. She teaches a wide range of courses, including precalculus, calculus and mathematical modeling. She has developed online courses in nultivariable calculus and complex systems, and for several years has explored ways to use technology as powerful teaching tools in both traditional and online courses settings. She strives to bring interesting and relevant problems into every course and is an advocate for educational equity and access. Christine loves music and crafts and enjoys exploring ways to merge her interests in mathematics and art.   

Chris Bolognese
Columbus Academy

Chris has been a high school math and computer science teacher for 17 years in both public and private schools. Chris currently teaches math and computer science in the upper school at Columbus Academy in Ohio. Chris was the 2021 state finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching and the 2017 Ohio state teacher of the year. He enjoys writing math contest problems, creating Desmos activities, and having his students construct their own problems. In his free time, he plays bass in a number of bands, collects vinyl records, and hangs with his four pets.

Dan Butler
The Lovett School 

Dan has been teaching math at the middle school and high school level for the past 39 years in the public and private school systems. He has taught all mathematics courses from pre-algebra to multivariable calculus and linear algebra. Dan gives numerous workshops in mathematics both in the United States and abroad. He has been involved in professional development workshops for the past 35 years, including ten years as a teacher leader in the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation and 31 years as an instructor in the Anja S. Greer Conference. Dan is passionate about math and math education.

Laurie Cavey
Boise State University

Laurie has been teaching mathematics courses for teachers for over 20 years. She specializes in mathematical knowledge for teaching concepts related to algebra, functions, and mathematical modeling at the secondary levels. She enjoys using investigations of students' mathematical ideas to support teachers in their efforts to recognize productive mathematical reasoning and to inform their responses to students' ideas. Prior to her teacher education career, she taught mathematics at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

 Ken Collins
Charlotte Latin School

Ken has a B.S. in physics and M.S. in math from New York University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. He has taught for 55 years in middle school through graduate school. His focus is on effective use of technology and applying mathematics to analyze current issues. He teaches calculus and algebra II with extensive use of calculator technology. Ken gives five to 10 workshops each year at regional and national conferences of NCTM, ACA, and T^3. He is currently writing curriculum material for classroom explorations in mathematics and using mathematics to analyze critical problems in our society.   

Niki Wells 
Skew The Script

Niki is a high school math teacher and content creator in Chicago. During her eight years as an educator, she taught everything from Algebra to Ztatistics (A to Z joke). In addition to teaching AP statistics and precalculus, she currently coaches boys and girls soccer.

Diana Davis
Phillips Exeter Academy

Diana teaches math, coaches girls cross country and is a dorm head at PEA. She previously created and taught problem-centered, discussion-based math classes at Northwestern University, Williams College and Swarthmore College. Outside of teaching and pedagogy, she does research in geometry, dynamical systems, and gerrymandering. She also attended PEA as a highly engaged high school student. Diana has worked at the conference since 2004 and as a leader since 2012. She loves to create opportunities for people to think deeply about math and discuss it with each other.   

Jess Emory
Phillips Exeter Academy

A New Hampshire native, Jess returned to the Granite State after spending five years teaching in private schools in New York City, a semester as an associate lecturer at the Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan, and a term working as a researcher at IIIT Hyderabad in India. Her teaching adventure started at Meridian Academy in Massachusetts, teaching in mixed-age, project-based, grade-free classrooms empowering students to find their love of STEM while completing New Teachers Collaborative at the Ted Sizer Essential School. Outside the classroom, Jess loves to go for walks in the woods, read, bake, all things D&D, and travel.

 Mahmoud Harding
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics 

Mahmoud is a North Carolina native who has taught math and data science at NCSSM for five years. He enjoys developing course material and collaborating with colleagues on projects. He taught both university and secondary school in the Middle East from 2002 to 2017. Previously, he worked as a programmer at Vf Corporation and as a systems analyst at IBM and Revlon. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics Education with a minor in Computer Science, an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and most recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Applied Statistics and Data Management.   

Thomas Hill
Brewster Academy

Tom earned a B.A. in mathematics at the University of Colorado, then attended Keene State College to earn his education certification. He has been teaching high school mathematics at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire since 2015. He has taught a range of classes from algebra II to AP calculus. He enjoys a good pun and an even better board game.

 

 Jeff Ibbotson
Phillips Exeter Academy

Jeff has been teaching at PEA since 1995. Prior to that he taught mathematics at Merrimack College. While there, he designed a course in history of mathematics for secondary level teachers. He has also been involved in teaching advanced math at high schools (group theory, real and complex analysis and game theory) and currently serves on the MAA's Board of Governors.    

 Ron Lancaster
University of Toronto

Ron is an associate professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, where he taught mathematics courses for pre-service teachers for 17 years. Ron taught grades 7-12 math for 23 years in coed public schools and a K-12 all-girls school. Ron's professional activities include consultations and conference presentations in North America, Asia, England, the Middle East, Africa and India. Ron has authored/edited over 150 articles for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and is the recipient of the 2015 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award in Mathematics Education awarded by the Fields Institute.   

Jeff McCalla 
St. Mary's Episcopal School

Jeff teaches mathematics and is the Test Prep Coordinator at St. Mary's Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2009, he received the Presidential Award for Excellence for Mathematics and Science Teaching. In 2021, he received the Teachers Teaching with Technology (T3) Leadership award. Jeff has written two books, TI-84 for Dummies and TI-Nspire for Dummies for Wiley Publishing.

Greta Mills
The Greene School

Greta's fascination with math has evolved from a love of pure math to embracing its applications. Her teaching career has focused largely on helping students and teachers develop a modeling mindset. In her current role as Director of Curriculum, Greta has introduced data science and modeling into the mathematics curriculum. Greta has been a judge for the M3 Challenge since 2012 and is serving as the NCTM judge for the HiMCM Modeling Contest. She is a member of the Math Modeling Hub Steering Committee, whose aim is to facilitate the integration of mathematical modeling in classrooms.

Tom Reardon
Austintown Fitch High School and Youngstown State University

Tom taught for 35 years at Fitch High School and 39 years at Youngstown State University. Since 1995, he has provided professional development about creatively integrating pedagogy and technologies appropriately in 7-12 math classrooms in 49 states and eight countries. His specialties are math modeling for social awareness, transformation graphing and geometry, problem solving strategies, ACT/SAT math prep. Tom is a frequent speaker at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and other national, state and regional conferences. He is a Presidential Awardee and has earned National Board Certification.   

Gurpreet Sahmbi
University of Toronto

Gurpreet is a secondary mathematics teacher and currently a sessional lecturer and the Junior/Intermediate Academic Coordinator for the teacher education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). She received her PhD in mathematics education in 2020 and focuses her research on transitions in mathematics; ways of improving pre- and in-service mathematics teacher education; and more recently, exploring pedagogies of care to support the development of mathematical content knowledge with teacher candidates.

Jessica Schenkel
Porter-Gaud School

Jessica has been an instructor of mathematics for the past 14 years in public, independent and boarding schools. She is an advocate for offering a rigorous, relevant mathematics curriculum that meets every learner where they are. She currently serves as the Mathematics Department chair at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina and has taught a variety of courses from algebra I to AP calculus. Jessica believes in designing class activities that are discovery based and engaging, giving students multiple opportunities to become flexible, discerning problem solvers and thinkers.    

Julie Van Wright 
Phillips Exeter Academy

Julie has taught a wide range of middle and high school math classes over the last 10 years. Before joining the math faculty at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2019, Julie developed and taught student-centered and Harkness-based math classes at independent schools in Rhode Island and Colorado. While she enjoys teaching at all levels, Julie especially appreciates teaching Algebra 1, where so many underlying concepts come together to help students build their future foundational understanding of math.   

Dashiell Young-Saver 
KIPP Texas Public Schools

In 2019, Dash decided to make his AP Stats class relevant. Working at a Title 1 school in San Antonio, he created lessons on topics his students cared about: policing and race, food deserts, sports, online dating, and much more. That year, more students at the school took and passed the AP exam than in the prior 16 years combined. Dash subsequently founded Skew The Script, a nonprofit that provides free and relevant math lessons to teachers. He currently teaches at KIPP Texas public schools, writes math lessons for The New York Times and is an AP Daily instructor & exam reader for AP Stats.   

Tatia Totorica
East Junior High School

Tatia has been teaching secondary and college-level mathematics courses for over 30 years. She mentors teacher candidates, teaches education courses and provides professional development at the state and local levels. Tatia is a certified mathematics coach and has spent the past five years investigating how to help teachers recognize and build on students' productive mathematical ideas. She is passionate about fostering positive mathematical identities and on building classroom environments centered on students and their thinking.