Michael Ackerman, Ph.D
Professor of Mathematics
Actuarial Science Program Coordinator
BS, Bellarmine University; M.A., University of Louisville; Ph.D., The University of Memphis
Mike Ackerman joined the Mathematics Department in 2001 and served as department chair from 2009 to 2014.
He regularly teaches the courses that support the Actuarial Science major (Probability and Mathematical Statistics I and II, Interest Theory, Introduction to Actuarial Mathematics), Discrete Mathematics, Elementary Statistics, and Mathematics for Liberal Arts. He also regularly teaches non-major courses in the Honors Program. Dr. Ackerman is a Project NExT Fellow.
Graph theory and voting theory are his research interests. He enjoys working with undergraduates on research projects.
Bill Fenton, Ph.D
Professor of Mathematics
B.S., Butler University; M.S. and Ph.D., Purdue University
Teaching/research interests: Matroids and oriented matroids, cooperative learning, technology in mathematics education, and classical geometry.
Bill Fenton came to Bellarmine in 1983. He was chair of the Mathematics Department from 1993 to 2009 and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences from 2009 to 2018. Despite his administrative duties, he regularly teaches modern geometry and operations research. Dr. Fenton was the recipient of the 2000 Kentucky-M.A.A. award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. His chief scholarly work has been the development of course materials that take advantage of technology and are conducive to cooperative learning. Most recently, Dr. Fenton is co-author with Sr. Barbara Reynolds from Cardinal Stritch University of the text College Geometry with The Geometer's Sketchpad (John Wiley & Sons Publishing).
Dawn Jewell
Administrative Assistant
B.A., Bellarmine University, Expected in May 2020
Dawn provides direct support to the faculty of Mathematics, Biology, Computer Science, Environmental Studies, Chemistry, and Physics to ensure their courses and teaching run smoothly. When not on task at Bellarmine, you can find Dawn in her yard enjoying time outside, making art or spending quality time with her family and two cats. Dawn will be a Bellarmine Alumni as of the spring of 2020.
Greg Kelsey, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
B.A. Bowdoin College; Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Teaching interests: Dr. Kelsey finds teaching calculus extremely interesting. Given the wide variety of ways that calculus is used in the sciences, there are many different ways to teach it. He has taught a variety of styles of calculus for different audiences: large-lecture business calculus at University of Illinois, group-work-only (no lecture) calculus for engineers, and calculus taught through the lens of understanding differential equations, as well as more traditional calculus courses. Dr. Kelsey enjoys blending all of these perspectives into his calculus courses.
He also enjoys teaching “liberal-arts mathematics” for non-majors. In that course, Dr. Kelsey has incorporated an initial voting theory unit into class decisions on the course topics and grading weights. He published an article describing this approach in PRIMUS (Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies).
Of the upper-level courses, Dr. Kelsey’s favorite course to teach is modern algebra, but anything that has to do with geometry, topology, dynamics, graph theory, or combinatorics is a lot of fun for him. Essentially any math course with pretty pictures with lots of symmetry is going to be one he can really get into.
Research interests: Dr. Kelsey’s research lies at the intersection of algebra with geometry and dynamics. He studies groups of symmetries of trees that are recursively defined. If such a group is sufficiently nice, it has an associated dynamical system, and vice versa. This relationship allows one to use group-theoretic methods to obtain dynamical results. From 2013 to 2015 Dr. Kelsey worked with several complex dynamicists through a SQuaRE (Structured Quartet Research Ensemble) funded by the American Institute of Mathematics on such problems and continues to work with members of that group.
Dr. Kelsey is also working with Keith Jones (SUNY Oneonta) to study geometric objects called Cayley graphs associated with such groups. These graphs are well understood for other groups, but not the ones described above. They are particularly interested in the Cayley graphs’ boundaries at infinity.
In his spare time, Dr. Kelsey enjoys spending time with his family, going for walks and hikes, and playing board and card games.
Jen Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
B.S., Bucknell University; M.S. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Ph.D., University of Delaware
Jen Miller joined the Mathematics Department in 2015.
Dr. Miller particularly enjoys teaching calculus 1 and 2, Numbers and Proof, and any applied math course she can convince students to take. She also loves to involve students in mathematical research. She has served as an undergraduate research mentor for a senior honors project on the spread of disease on networks, a project on the mathematics of contra dance, and a Clare Boothe Luce fellowship project on modeling competing populations. Dr. Miller's own research uses differential equations to model and analyze biological or bio-inspired phenomena, such as flocks of birds, swarms of robots, or neurons firing in clusters. When not doing math, Dr. Miller enjoys spending time with her family, dancing, and knitting.
Anne Raymond, Ph.D, Chair
Professor of Mathematics
B.S., Bellarmine University; M.S., University of North Carolina; Ph.D., Indiana University
Anne Raymond has been a member of the Mathematics Department at Bellarmine since 2003.
Teaching interests: Dr. Raymond enjoys teaching a variety of courses for majors including Linear Algebra, Abstract Algebra, Numbers and Proof, Calculus 3 and the capstone course, Readings in Mathematics. Non-majors courses that she teaches regularly are the Foundations of Mathematics I & II courses for students preparing to teach in the elementary and middle schools. She is a co-author of a textbook used for these Foundations courses, Mathematics for Elementary Teachers via Problem Solving, which is in its 3rd edition.
Research interests: Dr. Raymond has graduate degrees in both mathematics and mathematics education. Her early research, most notably appearing in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, focused on beliefs about mathematics and the impact of teachers’ beliefs on their teaching practice. Most of her on-going research addresses mathematics pedagogy from a variety of perspectives including technology in the mathematics classroom and how Theory of Multiple Intelligences informs mathematics pedagogy. Recent scholarly endeavors involve writing mathematics “micro-books” and book chapters for K -12 classroom instruction.
Service interests: Dr. Raymond is active University Faculty Governance. In the community, she regularly serves on the Governor’s Scholars selection committee for the Archdiocese of Louisville.
Susan White, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Mathematics
B.S., McNeese State University; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Louisville
Susan Calcote White is an associate professor of mathematics. She joined Bellarmine in 2011. She teaches a variety of courses for both majors and non-majors. Dr. White particularly enjoys teaching real and complex analysis, combinatorics, and stochastic processes for majors, and statistics courses for non-majors. Her research interests are primarily in the areas of analysis and combinatorics. Her pedagogical interests include incorporating the history of mathematics into mathematics courses and increasing statistical literacy among undergraduates.
Dr. White teaches Honors Freshman Focus regularly and serves on the Bellarmine Honors Council. She has served as a mathematics content expert with the Kentucky Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) with teachers at the elementary and secondary levels, most recently on the “Full STEAM Ahead: Preparing Elementary Teachers to Implement Best-Practices in Integrated STEAM Instruction” project. Dr. White has a B.S. in secondary mathematics education from McNeese State University (Lake Charles, LA), and an M.A. in mathematics and Ph.D. in applied and industrial mathematics from the University of Louisville.
Daylene Zielinski, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Mathematics
B.A., College of St. Benedict; Ph.D., University of Iowa
Daylene Zielinski joined the Mathematics Department in 1998.
Teaching Interests: Dr. Zielinski enjoys teaching Calculus at various levels and to different audiences. In particular, she has invested must professional time and energy in improving Business Calculus. She also enjoys teaching Algebra at many levels: College, Linear, Advanced Linear, and Abstract. She has also taught Topology and Real Analysis several times over the last two decades. Dr. Zielinski was invited to speak on “Finding You Teaching Style” which was an invited panel presentation for KYMAA NeXT given with Dora Ahmadi, Paul Eakin, and Austin French at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, KY in March 2007. Dr. Zielinski advocates being willing to try new approaches and take risks in the classroom. Dr. Zielinski has also taught several versions of Freshman Seminar and was Director of the Freshman Seminar program from 2004 – 2008.
Research Interests: Dr. Zielinski’s graduate work is in low-dimensional topology, but most of her published work is graph theoretical and/or interdisciplinary. She has published six joint papers with James Mai of Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Mr. Mai is a painter and digital artist. Their partnership has been fruitful in both directions. Dr. Zielinski’s mathematical observations influenced the final composition of Mai’s work “Epicycles” and her analysis of Mai’s work “Heart of Sky” revealed a new set of graph theoretical objects that lives properly between lattice animals and polynominoes. She was part of a team of mathematicians and artists who established the peer reviewed Journal of Mathematics and the Arts published by Taylor and Francis Group in the UK and served as an associate editor from 2008 – 2011 and continued on the editorial board until 2014. Dr. Zielinski has also been published in the areas of teaching writing skills and creating and using rubrics.
Service Interests: Past service activities have been helping to run the IDC program, serving in various faculty governance positions, and running a faculty lecture series. Lately, she had been serving on the University Honors and Awards Committee and organizing the annual lecture series Mathematics and the Public Good.
Personal Interests: Dr. Zielinski is originally from Minnesota and enjoys returning each summer to hike, boat, and enjoy the rich wildlife. She is an avid sci-fi fan: Trekkie, Whovian, etc. She loves her cats and watches too much TV.