Panama C. Geer

Chair of the Department of Mathematics
Appointed
2011
Panama Geer

"… and the thousands of fishes moved as a huge beast, piercing the water. They appear united, inexorably bound by common fate. How comes this unity?" — Anonymous, circa 1600s

Education

B.A. Wesleyan University

M.S. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Biography

As an undergraduate, Dr. Geer majored in both mathematics and fine arts with a concentration in sculpture. After college, she taught at The Hotchkiss School and then went on to get a master’s in applied math and a doctorate in mathematics. After a post-doc in computer science at Bryn Mawr College and several years teaching mathematics at the college level, she and her family moved to London. During her time in London, she focused on family and her artistic interests. Returning to the United States in 2011, she joined the Phillips Exeter Mathematics Department.

Dr. Geer came to PEA excited about working with students at a variety of levels of mathematics and has found it very rewarding to use the problem-based Harkness approach. Her interests in the curriculum have led her to coordinating a departmental group that regularly edits the problem sets that form the basis for the curriculum. Her particular mathematical interests are in the area of complex systems and applied geometry, so in addition to the standard PEA mathematics curriculum, she has enjoyed working these ideas into upper-level elective courses.

Dr. Geer and her family, which includes four children, live in a dormitory on campus, and in her free time she enjoys watching her children’s athletics games and restoring antique furniture.