Our Teachers
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Dilip Barman
Dilip has degrees in applied math and computer science from Johns Hopkins and Brown Universities and Marist College. He has taught grades K-9 math for several decades including at public and charter schools, the Chapel Hill Math Circle at UNC, Stanford University's math circle, Art of Problem Solving, Math Kangaroo, and summer camps at North Carolina School for Science and Math. He has taught remedial math at the college level and tutored as young as age 3 but primarily grades K-9, including for SAT preparation. He is also a passionate advocate for food and nutrition; he serves as Nutrition Education Director at a charter school, leads plant-based immersions, made a film, and hosts a monthly online cooking show. Check out his tweets about math and food!
Maria Droujkova
Maria focuses her research and development efforts on learning communities, informal education, online education, and game design. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from NCSU, and M.S. in Mathematics from Tulane University. Maria is the founder of Natural Math, an educational design, consulting, and publishing organization started in 1996. In 2020, Maria co-founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit Natural Math Alliance. Maria works on community-responsive projects, family mathematics, and making all mathematics accessible to everyone in kind ways. She co-authored Moebius Noodles and Avoid Hard Work, popular books with innovative mathematical activities for parents, teachers, and math circle leaders.
Kim Johnson
Kim has both her B.A. and her Ph.D. in mathematics. She started teaching elementary and middle school math in 2012. In all her math teaching, she emphasizes the breadth, beauty, creativity, and logic revealed by mathematical concepts.
She currently teaches for The Lukeion Project and Deerstream Learning Center, as well as homeschooling her own children. Kim also runs the Triangle Math Teachers' Circle, an organization to help teachers continue to fall in love with math.
Travis Willse
Travis has taught as a visiting assistant professor of mathematics at Guilford College in Greensboro since 2021, where he teaches all levels of undergraduate mathematics. He co-developed and co-ran an after-school mathematics enrichment program at an elementary school in Seattle. In his teaching of all ages and grades, Travis emphasizes the creativity of mathematical thinking as well as the connections to themes that recur in different parts of mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Washington, and his research interests include differential geometry, especially symmetries and the relationships between different types of geometry.
Andrew Prudhom
Andrew has taught mathematics at the Durham Academy Upper School since 2018, where he enjoys the freedom to offer "kooky electives" on the more esoteric mathematics he grew to love during his own math education. After dropping out of high school and working a factory job for a few years, he enrolled in a local community college and began what ended up as a ten-year love affair with mathematics. In that time he went from a mathematical layman to successfully defending a Ph.D. in pure mathematics from UNC Chapel Hill. Having had the opportunity to interact with the beautiful mathematics that are traditionally hidden away in the ivory tower, he is passionate about bringing that sort of math to mainstream audiences. At Durham Academy he specializes in teaching "high-level mathematics" at the high school level, and so far has taught classes in Logic, Discrete Mathematics, Topology, and Number Theory, all of which he teaches only requiring a basic algebra course as prerequisite.
Our Teaching Assistants
Anuragini Barman
Anuragini is a calculus student and has done every single problem in the Beast Academy 3-5, Prealgebra, and Algebra books. She loves origami.
Emmy Bray
Emmy is a calculus 3 student who loves economics and statistics. She enjoys painting and playing basketball in her free time.
Benoy DeSouza
Benoy is a recently retired software engineer who loves working with students. He majored in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering and splits his time between North Carolina and Portugal.
Victoria Yan
Victoria majored in math, especially enjoying interdisciplinary classes in areas like mathematical modeling in biology. She now works supporting educational technology and is a volunteer for Chapel Hill Math Circle.
She loves learning Spanish.
Julian Shulman
Julian is a precalculus student who enjoys helping students grow such as by teaching math, Spanish, and music, and being a camp counselor. He loves reading fiction, learning about history, and playing guitar.
Cameron Kenchen
Cameron studies public policy and communications. He is an experienced math tutor who treats math like a puzzle, seeing how all the pieces fit together for a clear understanding.
Atchuthan Rangarajan
Atchuthan is a student double majoring in physics and music who enjoys helping others understand complexities of math and science. He loves his trombone and speedcubing.