Faculty

Dr. Eileen Fernandez

fernandeze@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I teach mathematics and mathematics education to undergraduates and prospective and practicing teachers. My publications (some co-authored with students and teachers) focus on classroom description and appear in research and practitioner journals and books.

I am currently working on transforming a course I developed called Mathematical Modeling With Microsoft Excel into an Online course.

I have enjoyed climbing rocks, mountains and ice, and currently enjoy cross country skiing and skating, hiking and gardening.

Dr. Evan Fuller

fullere@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I have dual training in Combinatorics and Mathematics Education. I am using this expertise to conduct research on the teaching and learning of advanced mathematics. In particular, I am quite interested in issues concerning mathematical proof. I hope to add to the body of knowledge on proof in several ways by:

1. Further investigating the strategies used by undergraduate math majors to read and produce proofs.
2. Clarifying what it means to understand a proof and investigating different dimensions of proof understanding
3. Studying the conditions that aid different dimensions of proof understanding.

In addition, I am working to expand the theoretical framework of DNR-based Instruction (Guershon Harel). In particular, I am examining the implementation of DNR in a professional development institute designed to enrich in-service teachers' understanding of algebra and proof.

Dr. Steven Greenstein

greensteins@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

• Children's mathematical thinking
• Social justice mathematics
• The design of exploratory software environments for learning mathematics
• Contextually-relevant, culturally-resonant pedagogy

I am particularly interested in democratizing access to rich and authentic mathematical activity. I designed a dynamic geometry environment to elicit children's intuitive topological (or at least non-metric) thinking and support its development, and found that these children developed significant and authentic forms of geometric reasoning. I refer to these findings as qualitative geometry. Also, I've been conducting an investigation of the sociocultural context and cultural knowledge of the US Virgin Islands to inform the design of a contextually-relevant, culturally-resonant STEM teacher preparation program, one that challenges taken-for-granted assumptions of students’ mathematical knowledge, needs, and abilities by confronting deficit notions of their ability, honoring and respecting the diversity of knowledge they bring to school, and seeing that diversity as a resource for learning.

Dr. Erin Krupa

krupae@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I completed my Ph.D. in mathematics education at North Carolina State University (NCSU). My dissertation focused on the impact of an integrated mathematics curriculum on student achievement in high needs schools. It also analyzed the impact teacher’s participation in a state-funded professional development had on student achievement and on teachers’ implementation of the curriculum. Prior to returning to NCSU, I taught secondary mathematics at W.G. Enloe High School in Raleigh, NC. I also have a master’s degree from Wake Forest University in mathematics and was a Teaching Fellow at Elon University, where I earned her bachelors degree in mathematics.

Dr. Soo Jin Lee

leesoo@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I have investigated students’ and teachers’ understanding of mathematics in the upper elementary and middle grades focusing on fraction multiplication and fraction division (partitive and quotitive), and combinatorial reasoning. I am also interested in the role of symbolizing activities or the use of them in multiplicative situations. I am hoping to continue to develop accounts of knowledge used by students and teachers by inferring diverse and fine-grained knowledge elements that they activate to accomplish particular goals. I am studying teacher knowledge with an eye toward building effective teacher education and professional development programs that will in turn support teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching and students’ mathematical learning. Furthermore, I would like to design a course for doctoral students to help them understand how one’s perspective of knowledge frames every part of their dissertation (e.g., research questions, theoretical or conceptual frameworks, methods, implications, etc).

Dr. Aihua Li

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lia@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I was trained in pure mathematics but interested in research in several mathematics education topics. Recently I have participated in our GK-12 program as an advisor and coordinator for the international activities. Through an MSU Global Education program, I was involved in training college professors in foreign countries on teaching methodology in bilingual classrooms. For the past years, I have directed several REU programs at MSU. Currently I am a co-director of the annual MAA-NJ Section GSUMC (Garden State Undergraduate Mathematics Conference). I will be happy to help the growth of the MSU Ed. D. program by helping supervise doctorial students, in particular advising the mathematics component of their theses, by being involved in the curriculum development of the program, and by teaching mathematics classes listed in the program.

Dr. Andrew McDougall

mcdougalla@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I have been the Director of the Statistical Consulting Center (SCP) at MSU since 1997. As Director, I am responsible for all consulting activities conducted through the SCP on research projects by MSU faculty, staff, and graduate students. In addition, I have been involved in a variety of research projects, legal cases, and dissertation studies with external clients. These experiences led to the publication of the book “Statistical Consulting” (2002) which I co-authored with Professor Javier Cabrera. I am currently involved in the GK-12 grant as a researcher and have several ongoing research projects. Recently I submitted a NIH grant proposal as co-PI with Dr. Ilse Wambacq, Dept. of Audiology. A second NIH grant proposal with Dr. Diana Thomas is in preparation.

Dr. Mika Munakata

munakatam@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I began my career as a middle school and high school mathematics teacher. My work now at the collegiate level has direct connections to my experiences teaching at the secondary level. I typically teach undergraduate students training to be teachers, general education mathematics courses for students not necessarily training to be teachers and content, methods, and research courses for master’s and doctoral students. I am currently co-director of an NSF-funded project that pairs graduate research students with middle school teachers. For that project, we are collecting quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the impact of the project on graduate students and middle school students and teachers.

Dr. Helen M. Roberts

robertsh@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

I am trained as a Biostatistician. I have served as chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences since July 1999 and before that I was the Graduate Program Coordinator for 17 years. Currently I also serve as the Graduate Program Coordinator for the Middle Grades Certificate and MA in teaching Middle Grades Mathematics. In the past I chaired the Committee that developed and then implemented the General Education program that is now in place. Most recently I helped develop and served on the advisory committee for the “Traders to Teachers Program”. In the Spring of 2009 I served on a New Jersey Department of Education 2009 Standards Revision Project for New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Mathematics. I have served and am currently serving on several Mathematics Education doctoral dissertation committees.

Dr. Corey Webel

webelc@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

As a former high school mathematics teacher, my interests revolve around the teaching and learning of mathematics, particularly approaches to teaching which involve the use of collaborative learning formats and the distribution of mathematical authority in the classroom. In my research, I seek to understand how students make sense of their roles and responsibilities as members of their classroom communities. I am also interested in how preservice and practicing teachers develop mathematics knowledge for teaching.

Dr. Ken Wolff

wolffk@mail.montclair.edu

Research Interests:

After teaching high school for two years I came to Montclair State University (then Montclair State College) where I taught a range of mathematics courses for undergraduates and masters students. Over the years I became increasingly involved in the graduate mathematics education program and with professional organizations such as the Association of Mathematics Teachers of NJ (AMTNJ), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the International Conference for Technology in Collegiate Mathematics (ICTCM). I was President of AMTNJ (1981-82), ICTCM conference chair (1993), and continue to be an active reviewer for NCTM. During the past 10-20 years I have been primarily teaching masters and doctoral courses, involved with major grant and contractual projects and advising doctoral students, including chairing six dissertation committees. The current grant project for which I am a co-PI includes the use of interdisciplinary, theme based, field trips for which the preliminary evidence indicates have a very positive influence on students interest and involvement in their school-based learning.

My non-school interests include canoeing, hiking, gardening and travel.