The UNT College of Science is pleased to welcome Dr. Walter Bridges to the UNT Mathematics department as one of their newest Assistant Professors. Alongside working on his research work this semester, Dr. Bridges will be teaching Calculus I and Advanced Study of the Secondary Mathematics Curriculum (Math 4050).
"Calculus is the study of rates of change and is essential to economics and many of the sciences. To me, it's an amazing success story of human education that nowadays we routinely teach Calculus to students all over the world," said Dr. Bridges, who studied Mathematics Secondary Education at Appalachian State University in North Carolina and earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics at LSU. "In Math 4050, we do several things to prepare students to teach in the high school setting the following Spring, including teaching presentations, writing projects, certification exam preparation and a review of secondary mathematics content."
When asked of his research, Dr. Bridges pointed to the 2016 movie "The Man Who Knew Infinity" about mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan's life.
"The film takes place at a time when my field was just emerging and gives a flavor of the kind of math I'm interested in," he said. "My research program connects the long-term behavior of simple, combinatorial objects with the beautiful theory of modular forms in number theory."
Alongside the standard graduate and undergraduate math curriculum, Dr. Bridges is also excited to teach future and current high school math teachers through Teach North Texas.
"I'm delighted to be at UNT, and I could not think of a better working environment to be a part of," he said. "I get to teach what I'm passionate about, I get to join a strong, younger number theory group, and everyone here is so kind and helpful!"
Dr. Bridges advice for his students and himself is don't be afraid to ask others for advice.