WCDS teacher to help create Duke workshop
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on April 7, 2013 1:50 AM
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A math teacher at Wayne Country Day School is collaborating with a Duke University professor to create a student workshop on the university campus in the fall.
"Math everywhere day" is the working title for the event, said Dr. Steven Damelin, who joined the WCDS staff last year.
The one-day interdisciplinary program is being geared to North Carolina high school students, he said. Featured instructors would be a representation of Duke faculty, graduate students and N.C. high school teachers on various areas of mathematics, statistics and computer science.
Damelin, a native of South Africa who moved to the U.S. in 1999 and has worked in several collegiate programs before coming to WCDS, and is also on the faculty at Wake Tech in Raleigh, where he teaches statistics.
He is working with Dr. Sayan Mukherjee, departments of statistical science, mathematics and computer science at Duke. Their goal, he said, is to acquire grant funding for the proposed program and ultimately offer sessions in the fall and spring.
"We would like to have at least 40 students, from all over, grades 9 through 12," he said. "This is an idea I have been thinking about for a long time. It's something which really excited me."
Classes would blend discussion and practical application, with students recruited from public and private high schools. There would be no tests or grades, Damelin said, just opportunities to learn other math systems, from engineering to biomathematics.