Biography

I  was Born in Israel in 1949,  Being a child of Holocaust survivors, I sought the sanctuary of pure mathematics, whose beauty and order have preserved my sanity . . . and, to a certain extent, my humanity.  Thanks God, now that this phase of my life is behind me I turned my time and energy and am joining with others to share the beauty of Math with people from all backgrounds and all ages.  Math is hard wired into our brain.  It is a part and an expression of human consciousness that keeps unfolding forever like music, poetry and other forms of art.  Currently I am devoting my energy to continue healing my childhood trauma by learning music.  At the same time I continue volunteering in nursing homes and exploring the beauty of life with our elders who have so much wisdom to share.  I also founded an organization called familymath.org .  The vision is to empower teachers to awaken their own intuitive understanding of Mathematics and pass that lantern to students and other teachers.  One of the major tools that familymath uses is a computer language called Dogo that integrates music, animation and mathematics together.  Here is a link to a current experimental version of Dogo used by 5th grade students in an American school

Some "historical notes:

I completed my undergraduate and MA degrees at the Technion in Israel and immigrated with my wife and 3 years old daughter to the USA in 1977.  In 1981 I completed my PhD in Pure Mathematics at the University of Connecticut under the guidance of George Raney who became a dear friend and mentor.  In 1981 I was accepted as an assistant professor at Ithaca College and retired after 33 years in 2014.  In addition to the usual course taught, I designed two new courses:  Math Art with Computers and Math Fun with computers.  These non traditional courses were designed to empower and inspire students who do not like math and to connect math with life.

Shortly after coming to Ithaca College I started directing Math summer camps and with the help of a colleague, Dr. David Rosenthal  co-designed a computer language that was later used both in college classes and in the summer camps.   I also conducted many Math days  at Ithaca College and in school and inspired local schools to run Math days.  In 2008 I discovered a wonderful tool to teach Math called GeoGebra and directed  the  First GeoGebra conference in North America.

Link to my personal page