Mathematics Archives

Mr. Benny Varghese is Research and Publication Officer (Post Graduate Teacher Mathematics) at Navodaya Leadership Institute, Canacona, Goa—one of the seven teacher training institutes for Navodaya Schools run by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. With 25 years of teaching experience in senior secondary schools, Mr. Varghese was honored with the National ICT Award by the Government of India in 2016 in recognition of his effective and innovative integration of ICT in promoting students’ learning. During 2020-22, he served as an institute advisory board member of the Central Institute of Education Technology, a constituent unit of the National Council of Educational Research and Training, Government of India. He holds a master’s degree in mathematics and a bachelor’s degree in education.

At times, the abstractness of mathematics makes its teaching and learning a dull experience for many. Through his Fulbright DAI project, ‘Toy-based pedagogy for enjoyable mathematics learning’, Mr. Varghese aims to transform the traditional methods of teaching and learning Math by means of gamification. Given children’s fondness for games, he intends to design and use mathematical games to teach and reinforce math concepts. Upon his return to India, he intends to share his enriching Fulbright DAI experience and his pedagogical findings with Navodaya school teachers. He further aims to implement the findings of his project in Navodaya schools and in other educational organizations in the country.

Dr. Rahul Kumar is currently a postdoctoral F ellow at the Center for Geometry and Physics, Institute for Basic Science, POSTECH, South Korea. He obtained his BSc from B S A C ollege, Mathura, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, and his MSc from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He then completed his PhD in October 2020 from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar under the supervision of Prof. Atul Dixit. His research interests are in analytic number theory, special functions, and the theory of partitions. The work of Ramanujan also influences Dr. Kumar’s research. Over the years, he has worked on various topics such as the Lambert series, zeros and special values of certain L-functions, and the theory of zeta and Bessel functions arising from modular relations, etc. He has published several research papers in reputed international journals. He has qualified for IIT-JAM, CSIR-NET, and GATE examinations. Recently, he was selected for the NBHM postdoctoral F ellowship.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow , Dr. Kumar will be joining the Department of Mathematics, Penn State University, University Park, USA. The study of Selberg L-functions has been of great interest to mathematicians since Selberg introduced them. During his stint, Dr. Kumar will also study the theory of these L-functions apart from developing the theory of generalized Hurwitz zeta and polylogarithm functions. The latter two functions have appeared in his (and others) recent works on modular relations and Herglotz functions.