Matt Boelkins

Matt Boelkins is Professor of Mathematics at Grand Valley State University, where he has been a member of the faculty for nearly 20 years.  He earned his PhD from Syracuse University, MS from Western Washington University, and BS from Geneva College, all in mathematics.

A passionate teacher, Professor Boelkins has been recognized with several teaching-related honors, including the 2013 Michigan MAA Distinguished Teaching Award and the 2016 Michigan Association of State Universities’ Distinguished Professor of the Year.  Throughout his career, he has been an avid practitioner of the scholarship of teaching and learning, and has worked to promote its practice through scholarly papers, conference presentations, and the journal PRIMUS (Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies), which he now serves as co-Editor-in-Chief.

Boelkins has co-authored several research papers with undergraduate students on problems in the geometry of polynomials; he is also the co-author of three textbooks, including the free, open-source Active Calculus (http://gvsu.edu/s/Ym).  Besides being free, Active Calculus differs from most calculus text in that it has very few worked examples and instead presents the ideas of the course through a sequence of activities that students work on during class.

Since his first year at Grand Valley, Boelkins has been an active member of the Mathematical Association of America.  Prior to his election as the Association’s first vice president, he was Governor of the Michigan Section, Chair of the Michigan Section, and co-organizer of the Michigan Project NExT Symposium.  He was also ’99-00 Project NExT Fellow and has remained connected to Project NExT as a consultant and invited speaker.  

In his spare time, Matt enjoys fly fishing on Michigan rivers and refereeing youth ice hockey.