Gerard Venema

Gerard Venema earned an A.B. in mathematics from Calvin College and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. After completing his education he spent two years in a postdoctoral position at the University of Texas at Austin and another two years as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He then returned to his alma mater, Calvin College, and has been a faculty member there ever since. While on the Calvin College faculty he has also held visiting faculty positions at the University of Tennessee, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University. He spent two years as Program Director for Topology, Geometry, and Foundations in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation.

Venema's primary professional interest has been research in Geometric Topology. He has authored a number of research articles in the area and is coauthor, with Robert Daverman, of the research monograph Embeddings in Manifolds, published by the American Mathematical Society as volume 106 in its Graduate Studies in Mathematics series. More recently he has focussed on undergraduate geometry and is the author of two textbooks in that field: Foundations of Geometry, published by Pearson Education, Inc., and Exploring Advanced Euclidean Geometry with GeoGebra, which was published by the MAA.

Venema is a long-time member of the Mathematical Association of America. He served for ten years as an Associate Editor of the American Mathematical Monthly and currently sits on the editorial board of MAA FOCUS. Venema has served as chair of the Michigan Section of the MAA and is the 2013 recipient of the section's distinguished service award. As MAA Associate Secretary he is responsible for the scientific program at the MAA's two national meetings, MathFest and the Joint Mathematics Meetings.