Jon Epstein, Ph.D.

A mathematician who sees math as a chance to form connections with each other.

Considerate | Exploratory | Analytical: One of Jon Epstein’s core lessons to his students is that mathematics is not just a tool for understanding the world, but a human endeavor undertaken together. Epstein came to McDaniel after a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, all in Mathematics.
What’s your background? Where were you before McDaniel and when did you start here?: I came to McDaniel last fall from the wide-open plains of Oklahoma where I was doing a postdoc in Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma. Before Oklahoma, I lived, studied, and worked up and down the East coast. So, it’s a sort of return for me.
What have you enjoyed most during your time at McDaniel?: The students have been great to work with. They push me to think more deeply about the concepts we discuss in class and how those concepts are situated more broadly. Also, they often cause me to reflect on my own relationship to mathematics.
What do you hope students take away from your courses?: I would like students to ask questions, no matter how simple. Mathematics has such depth, and yet it arises from very simple, even naïve, questions about our experience of the world. I hope that students not only appreciate this, but also learn to ask questions, pursue answers, and perhaps even create some math themselves.

About Prof. Epstein