Mathematician, PhD Stanford, Freedom Class of 1995

After graduating from Freedom High School in 1995, Ben attended Penn State University, graduating with honors with a BS in mathematics and statistics and a minor in Spanish. 

He then moved to rural Japan to teach English for three years, where he picked up a love for both travel and teaching. After taking almost a year to backpack around Southeast Asia (with a brief 2-month interlude on a boat to Africa and back), Ben obtained his Masters degree in Teaching at Duke University and taught mathematics at Alpharetta High School in Georgia. While there, Ben created and taught a distance AP Calculus BC class that brought advanced mathematics opportunities to underrepresented students at a school 40 miles from his own. Ben then moved to California to obtain a PhD in Mathematics Education from Stanford University, interrupted first to be one of the first recipients of the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching (allowing him to teach and do research in Tampere, Finland for an academic year) and second to begin working for The College Board to redesign the AP Calculus courses. Ben completed his degree while working full time at College Board, where he was in charge of both the AP Calculus and AP Statistics curricula. He currently works for Educational Testing Services as one of the Assessment Specialists for the AP Calculus examinations and lives in Suwanee, Georgia, with his wife and two small children.