Glen Whitney, PhD

Glen Whitney is passionate about every aspect of public mathematics — engagement, appreciation, and informal learning.

Whitney studied mathematical logic for his Ph.D. (UCLA 1994). He served on the faculty of the University of Michigan and subsequently became an applied mathematician at the quantitative hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies. In 2008, he left Renaissance and founded the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City. The museum opened its doors to the public in December 2012 and has welcomed over a million visitors. Whitney has continued his work both in public mathematics engagement and in the museum world since then, spending time as visiting faculty at Harvard, ICERM, and the Museum of Food and Drink. Lately, his scholarly interests have been in algebra related to knot theory, with two recent publications on quandles.