Phong Luu

Phong Luu, assistant professor of mathematics at the University of North Georgia (UNG), constantly searches for ways to help his students better understand the complex course material.

He gets excited when he thinks of programs that can fill a gap to benefit students.

"When I see something that I can apply that people have never done before, I try to think about how to make a change in a way that is more practical," Luu said. "I initiate new ideas that we can apply to our teaching to help students."

This mindset has led to a pair of Presidential Incentive Awards to support his work.

The first, in 2018, was a Presidential Semester Incentive Award that allowed him to team with associate professor of mathematics Thinh Kieu to create "maplets" in the popular mathematics-learning software Maple. These maplets are like a digital tutor with "infinite patience" that provides step-by-step hints to allow students to find the right answer and advance to the next part of a problem.

His second award, in 2021, was a Presidential Incentive Award for Innovation. With it, he is creating procedures to help statistics students focus not just on getting the right answers, but interpreting the calculations.

"It's important to know how to calculate manually so they know where their answers come from, as well as to use statistical concepts and techniques they learn to analyze numerical and graphical results," Luu said.

He also published an article in the "Teaching Statistics" journal on this topic.

By using the latest technology, Luu is able to make his courses practical. He enjoys mentoring students as they research statistics and work on their senior projects.

"I want students to be competitive when they're applying for jobs or graduate school," Luu said.