Welcoming New Mathematics Instructors to ESG
The Experimental Study Group (ESG) is happy to welcome math lecturers Dr. Jonathan Bloom and Dr. Arthur Parzygnat as permanent members of the program, replacing long-time lecturers Jerry Orloff and Gabrielle Stoy. Jon and Arthur are excited to join the ESG first-year learning community.
Jon Bloom joined ESG in the fall of 2023 and teaches single-variable calculus (ES.1801), multi-variable calculus (ES.1801a/2a), and differential equations (ES.1803), as well as probability and statistics (18.05) in a joint appointment with the Math Department. He most recently worked at the biotech startup Cellarity, where he led a team of computational scientists to develop an end-to-end machine learning platform that targets disease at the level of cells and tissues. In his prior role as an Institute Scientist at the Broad Institute, Jon led a team of engineers to develop open-source software (Hail) to perform biobank-scale genomic data analysis and co-founded Models, Inference and Algorithms, a learning community that brings together the worlds of computation and biomedicine.
Jon’s industry experience enables him to help students see the many applications of the math that they are learning: “So many of my students, whether in ESG or in 18.05, have interests that overlap with AI or biotech or software, in addition to math. I love being able to move across those worlds to engage with them in a motivating way.”
With degrees in math from Harvard (BA) and Columbia (PhD), Jon first came to MIT as a Moore Instructor and NSF postdoc. His research focuses on topology, and, while at MIT, he proved theorems about 3- and 4-dimensional shapes and worked with long-time ESG and math department lecturer Jerry Orloff to redevelop the probability and statistics curriculum and “flip” the classroom. That connection with Jerry is what brought Jon into the ESG realm when Jerry decided to retire last year. We are happy that Jon has once again returned to MIT to continue retooling math education and teaching first-year undergrads at ESG.
Since Arthur Parzygnat joined ESG in the fall of 2023, he has taught single-variable calculus (ES.1801) and multi-variable calculus (ES.1802). In Spring 2025, he will introduce a small-class version of linear algebra (ES.1806) at ESG. Given the relevance of linear algebra to many majors at MIT, including computer science, offering an ESG version of 18.06 is an exciting development for the ESG course catalog.
Arthur brings a range of academic studies, teaching, and research experience to ESG. Following a PhD in physics from CUNY Graduate Center and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in mathematics, Arthur held postdoc positions in mathematics (University of Connecticut), physics (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France), and informatics (Nagoya University in Japan). His research interests center on the notion of time in quantum physics, specifically Bayesian inference and causality.Over the years, he has created many educational video lectures and tutored dozens of students.
If you ask Arthur about his teaching philosophy, he focuses on two concepts: that it is more important to learn a few things in depth and detail than it is to learn many things poorly, and that understanding how someone thinks and learns is critical to being able to teach them. The small class learning at ESG provides an ideal setting for Arthur to put his philosophy into practice. “I think you get to know students more easily in these small settings. Over the course of the semester you learn the kinds of things that people think, what ideas will help them learn material the best,” Arthur notes. And this ability to help students understand how they learn is empowering. “If you guide the students to learn something really, really well, then they gain the confidence like, ‘I’m doing this. I understand these ideas. And I figured out how to teach this to myself….’ I feel like they have the confidence to be able to approach hopefully anything.”
The arrival of Jon and Arthur at ESG has been an exciting development for the program. As director Leigh Royden states, “While we were sad to lose our wonderful math lecturers Gabrielle Stoy and Jerry Orloff last year, hiring new people always brings in new ideas and new energy. Both Jon and Arthur are expanding the ESG footprint. Jon has remade 18.05 for the math department in ways that echo the ESG way of teaching with small group work and problem solving in class. Arthur is reimagining 18.06 for ESG, which we haven’t taught in many years. There’s a lot of excitement around it, with more first years planning to take 18.06 than 18.03.”
— Bettina McGimsey, ESG