About Us

Al Cuoco is a Distinguished Scholar at Education Development Center, Inc. He is the lead author of CME Project, an NSF-funded high school curriculum published by Pearson. Recently, he served as part of a team that revised the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) recommendations for teacher preparation and professional development. Cuoco is carrying out several professional development streams of work devoted to the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics Standards for Mathematical Practice, including EDC’s Mathematical Practices Institute (MPI). Through the MPI, he and his colleagues have launched a new course for teachers and facilitators, Developing Mathematical Practice in High School. He co-directed Focus on Mathematics. He also co-directs the development of the course for secondary teachers in the Institute for Advanced Study. Prior to joining EDC, Cuoco taught high school mathematics to a wide range of students in the Woburn, Massachusetts public schools from 1969 until 1993. A student of Ralph Greenberg, he holds a PhD in mathematics from Brandeis, with a thesis and publications in Iwasawa theory.

Miriam Gates is a research associate at Education Development Center. She brings more than six years of experience as a classroom teacher and research assistant to her current position. Before joining EDC, she worked at Temple University as a research assistant focusing on the use of example-based teaching to challenge student misconceptions in algebra. Gates received her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College and her master’s in educational psychology from Temple University.

Jane M. Kang is a curriculum and instructional design associate at Education Development Center. She is a co-author of EDC’s NSF-funded Transition to Algebra curriculum, which focuses student learning on key algebraic habits of mind. Before joining EDC, Jane taught mathematics for seven years at Charlestown High School in the Boston Public Schools. She has an AB in chemistry, and EdM in international education policy, and an MLA in mathematics for teaching, all from Harvard University.

Bowen Kerins is an EDC Research Scientist and Senior Curriculum Designer, and a core member of the author team for the CME Project high school mathematics curriculum. He is highly experienced in current techniques and procedures used in the design, development, and implementation of curriculum, curriculum‐based professional development, instruction, and assessments. Since 2001, Kerins has taught and designed the curriculum for the Park City Mathematics Institute’s program for high school teachers. For many years, he has worked with the PROMYS program at Boston University. As a core advisor on all five strands of WGBH’s Learning Math—a website and video series—he advanced goals to help teachers learn more mathematical content. Before joining EDC, Kerins was a high school mathematics teacher for four years, teaching all grades and all levels from Algebra I to AP Calculus. He also served as a trainer for The MathWorks company in Natick, Massachusetts. He has a BS in mathematics from Stanford University and an MA in teaching secondary mathematics from Boston University. Bowen is also a champion pinball player and once won $1,000 for knowing the number of degrees in a right angle.

Ryota Matsuura is an Associate Professor in the mathematics department at St. Olaf College, where he serves as the Director of Mathematics Education. After three years of teaching mathematics at Brookline High School, he got a Ph.D. in Number Theory from Boston University. He was co-director of research on the Math Science Partnership Focus on Mathematics. As North American Director of Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education, he leads a study abroad program for pre-service and in-service teachers.  He served as Principal Investigator for Assessing Secondary Teachers’ Algebraic Habits of Mind, an NSF DRK-12 collaborative grant with colleagues from Boston University and Education Development Center, Inc.

Glenn Stevens is Professor of Mathematics at Boston University where he has taught and conducted research since 1984. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1981. Beginning in 1989, Professor Stevens has directed Boston University's Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS), a program for aspiring young mathematicians and their teachers. His research specialties are Number Theory, Automorphic Forms, and Arithmetic Geometry. He has authored or edited three books and published numerous articles on these topics. Professor Stevens has organized two major research conferences including the Conference on Modular Forms and Fermat's Last Theorem held at Boston University in 1995, and has delivered well over a hundred invited lectures around the world. Currently, he serves as Principal Investigator for Assessing Secondary Teachers’ Algebraic Habits of Mind, an NSF DRK-12 collaborative grant with colleagues from Education Development Center, Inc. and St. Olaf College.

Sarah Sword is a Senior Research Scientist at Education Development Center, Inc.  She received her Ph.D. in Commutative Algebra from Michigan State University, and has taught high school Algebra, Algebra 2, and Geometry. Her work spans a wide range of mathematics education, including curriculum development, professional development for teachers and coaches, research on mathematics learning, teacher practices, equitable practices in mathematics classrooms, and assessment work.  She is a co-author of the Mathematical Habits of Mind based high school curriculum, CME Project, and c0-author of the book Mathematical Learning and Understanding in Education. She is co-director of research on the NSF-funded Mathematics Science Project, Designing for Equity by Thinking in and about Mathematics. She served as Principal Investigator for Assessing Secondary Teachers’ Algebraic Habits of Mind.