Dave Kung, Ph.D.
Director, Strategic Partnerships
Email: david.kung@austin.utexas.edu
Dana Center Role
Dave advances the Center’s mission with the field at large, developing and maintaining partnership with organizations to build consensus, communicate solutions, and ensure implementation at scale.
As a mathematician with deep experience across mathematics organizations, Dave works closely with the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences, its member organizations, and other groups. Through these partnerships, Dave builds consensus with the field around equitable, research-based innovations that ensure students have access to and find success in mathematics courses and pathways aligned to their aspirations.
Dave represents the Center regularly at conferences and through the media to broadly communicate current thinking within the field, bringing education organizations and the public together in conversations around effective teaching and learning strategies, enabling policy conditions, mathematics education research, and innovations in the field.
Dave also leads the development work at the Center, coordinating with Center teams to develop and maintain strong relationships with funding organizations as we propose new innovations with the field.
Before Joining the Dana Center
Prior to joining the Center, Dave served as a mathematics professor for more than two decades at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. During his time at Maryland’s Public Honors College, he served as chair, lead revisions of the core curriculum, and established an Emerging Scholars program focused on racial equity. He has won regional and national awards for his teaching and service.
Dave recently ended his tenure as director of MAA Project NExT, a professional development program for new faculty in the mathematical sciences.
Dave has also worked for Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Math (TPSE-Math), and done stints at Fudan University in Shanghai and Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He has served on numerous national committees, advisory boards, and editorial boards.
Dave regularly engages audiences on topics from diversity in STEM fields, to mathematics and music, to mind-bending paradoxes. His two-video series for The Great Courses have been best sellers.
Education
Ph.D., Mathematics (Harmonic Analysis), University of Wisconsin, Madison
M.A., Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
B.A., Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Selected Professional Activities
Chair, AMS Impact on Teaching and Learning of Mathematics Award Selection Committee (2021-present)
Member, MAA Committee on the Inclusivity Prize (2020–2022)
Founder and director, Southern Maryland Math Circle, a math enrichment program for local middle school and high school students (2014–present)
Member, Dana Center Mathematics Pathways Leadership Fellows (2017–2020)
Co-organizer, Math Chairs for Racial Justice (2020, 2022)
Member, TPSE Math’s Mathematics Advisory Group (2016–present)
Editorial board member, MAA’s Math Horizons (2013–2020)
Panelist, Teaching for Mathematical Sciences Research Institute’s Postdoctoral Fellows (2020)
Selected Presentations
Math for the 21st Century: Interest-Driven Equitable Pathways Aligned with Student Aspirations, Higher Education, and Workforce Needs. IES National Math Summit, September 26, 2023
Inquire & Inspire: Conversation with Experts. Closing session, IES National Math Summit. With Steve Leinwand, September 26, 2023
The Launch Years Initiative: Math pathways aligned with student aspirations & equitably implemented. Joint Mathematics Meetings, January 6, 2023. =
Why the Math Community Struggles with Equity & Diversity — and Why There’s Reason for Hope. Hrabowski-Gates-Tapia-McBay Lecture, Joint Mathematics Meetings (virtual), April 8, 2022
From teaching math to teaching students: Transforming classroom norms among college math instructors. Johns Hopkins University’s Workshop on Mathematical Norms, Baltimore, MD, September 2019.
Math & Responsible Citizenship. TEDxGreatMills, tinyurl.com/KungTEDx, March 23, 2019
Symphonic Equations: A Mathematical Exploration of Music, MAA Distinguished Lecture Series (with musicians Y. Caruthers and A. Goldman) Washington D.C., February 26, 2013.
Selected Honors
Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award: Top honor in college mathematics teaching in the United States, given annually to three people by MAA (2021)
Selected Publications
Kung, D., & Speer, N. (2020). What could they possibly be thinking!?! Understanding your college math students (MAA Notes series, Vol. 90). Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America.
Kung, D. (2019). Math for social justice: A last math class for responsible citizens. In G. Karaali & L. S. Khadjavi (Eds.), Mathematics for social justice: Resources for the college classroom (AMS/MAA Classroom Resource Materials, Vol. 60, pp. 61–66). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.
Hamman, K., & Kung, D. (December 2016/January 2017). A delicate balance: Quantitative literacy and equity. MAA FOCUS, 36(6), 14–15.
Hauk, S., Speer, N. M., Kung, D., Tsay, J.-J., & Hsu E. (2013). Video cases for college mathematics instructor professional development. Retrieved from
Kung, D., & Speer, N. (2013). Do they really get it? Evaluating evidence of student understanding of power series. PRIMUS: Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies, 23(5), 419–433.
Developed Courses
Mind-Bending Math: Riddles and Paradoxes, The Teaching Company’s Great Courses (July 2015):
This 24-lecture course explores the ageless riddles that have plagued even the greatest thinkers in history—confounding the philosophical, mathematical, and scientific minds grappling to solve them. Students learn how to break down, examine, and solve these famous quandaries.
How Music and Mathematics Relate, The Teaching Company’s Great Courses (February 2013):
This 12-lecture course gives students a new perspective on two of the greatest achievements of human culture—music and math—and the fascinating connections that help them more fully appreciate the intricacies of both.