Mariana Levin

Western Michigan University

Faculty

Mariana (Mari) Levin is a professor in the Department of Mathematics at Western Michigan University.  She joined the faculty at WMU in 2015 after a postdoctoral fellowship at Michigan State University and completing her doctoral studies at UC Berkeley. One of the most fulfilling parts of her job at WMU is working with future teachers and cultivating an image of mathematics as a creative and joyful activity.

Together with her family, Mari co-facilitates a local math club for elementary students in grades K-6.  She and her husband Aaron have two young children who love studying both violin and piano, playing board games as a family, going to as many classical music concerts as possible, and hiking in Kalamazoo’s many wonderful nature preserves. Her son just started in the KJSO Prep Strings program this past year and her daughter will join this coming year.

Mari herself is a lifelong violinist. Her principal violin teachers were pioneering Suzuki pedagogue Theodore Brunson and later Michael and Irina Tseitlin of the California Institute of Music.  Chamber music festivals and performances took her to Mexico, Korea, Portugal, and Germany.  While in graduate school, she was the concertmaster of the Prometheus Symphony as well as a violinist with the Kensington Symphony and the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. Currently, she plays in the music ensemble at Temple B’nai Israel and in the Kalamazoo Philharmonia.

In addition to the Stulberg Board, Mari serves on the Board of Directors of The Montessori School and the Michigan Association for Mathematics Teacher Educators and she serves as the co-chair of the WMU College of Arts and Science Women’s Caucus Steering Committee and on the WMU Department of Mathematics Executive Committee.