Fields
Education
M.Sci., Queen Mary University of London, 1999
Ph.D., Queen Mary University of London, 2003
At Marlboro Since
2003
A native of Birmingham, England, math professor Matt Ollis appreciates that Marlboro’s small classes allow him to give close attention to each student’s strengths and weaknesses, from teaching introductory courses to working in an advanced tutorial with a senior. “It has been more interesting teaching here from the start,” he says. “Marlboro students are passionate about their work, whether it’s someone delving deeply into a very specific math question or making interesting connections to other disciplines.”
Teaching Philosophy
Matt strives to make math accessible to all students at Marlboro, whether they are brushing up on basic skills or want to grapple with deep mathematical ideas. “To study mathematics,” he says, “you have to arrange your thoughts in a specific way, and that can be very helpful in anything. In science, understanding the math that underlies what you are studying can be especially helpful.”
Matt is an active member of the Environmental Advisory Committee, and introduced a class called How Environmentally Sustainable is Marlboro College? to engage students in the research and analysis needed to optimize the college’s use of resources.
Scholarly Activities
Matt’s primary field of research is combinatorics, which means that he explores the different arrangements and patterns it is possible to make under various constraints and, when possible, counts them. Matt has worked on combinatorial methods that can be used for everything from drug trials to juggling tricks. Research in combinatorics is accessible to upper level undergraduates, and Matt has co-authored papers with several Marlboro students.
Sponsored Plan
John McGill, 2017
Samuel Judson, 2016
Anna Goren, 2015
Ambrose Sterr, 2007
News
Preliminary data from project in Ragle Hall suggests significant results.
Data Humanist Certificate program draws important links between humanities and sciences.
Grants from the endowment of the Jerome I. Aron Fund supported the research efforts of four students and their Plan sponsors this year.
The current issue of Australasian Journal of Combinatorics (vol. 51: 243-257) includes a joint paper by Marlboro College math professor Matt Ollis and his former student Devin Willmott ’11. Titled “On twizzler, zigzag and graceful terraces,” the paper adds to our mathematical knowledge of balanced sequences known [...]