Katherine Socha

Katherine teaches any mathematics from 9th Grade through advanced topics classes like linear algebra, abstract algebra, knot theory, and even introductory complex analysis for students who are particularly advanced.

She coaches advanced students in mathematics, and enjoys working with seniors as they define their senior projects. Katherine likes helping with a tennis team season (boys’ and girls’) on occasion.

Katherine has 30 years of mathematics teaching experience, primarily at the undergraduate level as a tenured mathematics professor at a liberal arts college. She has been active in expository mathematics (writing articles about mathematical topics that are accessible to the general public, to high school students, or to undergraduate students). She also worked at a nonprofit whose primary mission was to help experienced public school math and science teachers remain in the teaching profession, using community building and continuing education in STEM to keep teachers fresh and excited and collaborating together. This work led her to teach at the high school level.

Katherine has presented and published widely in her field. Selected presentations and an article are listed below:

• MAA MathFest (2008): “How to Be a West Running Brook: 12 Roads to Better Living Through Mathematics.”
• Joint Mathematics Meetings (2011): “Sea Battles, Benjamin Franklin’s Oil Lamp, and Jellybellies.” 
• MAA Section Meeting (2013): “Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog Meets Doctor Leadley’s Linear Algebra.”
• Socha, K. Circles in Circles: Creating a Mathematical Model of Surface Water Waves, American Mathematical Monthly, 114 (2007), no. 3. (This article won the 2008 MAA Lester R. Ford Award for expository excellence.)

Just before the pandemic, she began seriously studying hammered dulcimer.

Katherine earned a B.A. in Mathematics from Reed College, an M.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Texas, Austin.