I'm Robert Talbert, and I am a Professor here in the Mathematics Department at GVSU. I am not a math genius. I was a B/C student in math through high school, but then I had a teacher for Calculus in my senior year who stopped trying to cram things into my head and let me figure things out on my own instead. After a two-year stint as a Psychology major in college, I changed my major to Mathematics on a dare from my roommate (long story), and to my surprise I fell in love with mathematics as a result, and it's been all love ever since.
I have Master's and Ph.D. degrees from Vanderbilt University, where through sheer stubbornness I finished a dissertation on an obscure area at the intersection of abstract algebra and geometry. I went on to spend 14 years teaching in small liberal arts colleges before coming to GVSU in 2011. I teach classes ranging from Precalculus through Abstract Algebra, teaching people how to learn math and think like mathematicians. I also do research on how to help students learn better by using technology and active learning techniques. I wrote a book about this a few years ago and won a teaching award recently, but I still think I have a lot to learn.
I grew up in Dickson County, Tennessee (near Nashville) in a family of engineers and surrounded by hundreds of acres of pristine Tennessee forest where I would spend the afternoons hiking after finishing my homework. I live in Allendale with an amazing wife; three kids ages 11, 14, and 16; and four cats. I enjoy cooking, reading, soccer (Premier League, Bundesliga, and MLS), bicycling, and Reddit. Feel free to connect with me on Twitter at @RobertTalbert or LinkedIn, and follow my blog at http://rtalbert.org/blog.