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Ben has been teaching Literature and Humanities courses as part of ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ's Humanities and Social Sciences department since 2013. His courses cover a wide variety of subjects under the larger umbrella of "The Humanities," but recently his focus has been on the environmental humanities in particular: he currently offers courses in American Nature Writing and Climate Fiction Literature and Film (among all the others). He was promoted to full Professor in 2023 and went on a research sabbatical during the 2023-2024 academic year to begin work on a new book project, which combines personal nonfiction and academic argumentation to advocate for a more holistic conception of the natural world's place in our lives. These days, he is continuing work on the book in hopes of turning it into a formal proposal to publishers. He is also collaborating with the AIRE Center to introduce a humanistic perspective to what is already an interdisciplinary endeavor.

Outside of work, Ben spends as much time hiking and sleeping on the ground as possible. He also loves going on lots of hikes, walks, and road trips throughout the West with his wife and two heelers. When he's recovering from all of the outdoor activities, he loves reading fiction and non-fiction, playing pretentious, artsy video games, writing songs, playing the guitar, and listening to jam bands. Somewhere in there, he occasionally sleeps.

I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ. I joined ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ in 2013. Before coming here, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toledo, OH from 2010 to 2013.

I completed my Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky in August 2010, under the supervision of Prof. David Leep. My research interests are in Number Theory and Quadratic Forms. My Ph.D. thesis was titled "Diagonal Forms and Rationality of the Poincaré Series", which, loosely speaking, is the study of the number of solutions of a polynomial modulo powers of prime and the power series that it generates.

I did my undergraduate education -- B.S. (Hons.) in Mathematics from the Chennai Mathematical Institute, India in 2004.

Apart from mathematics, I'm also interested in scientific and recreational programming using Python and game programming using GameMaker Studio and Godot.