Sloan Despeaux

Biography

Sloan Despeaux has called Cullowhee home since 2002, when she began her career at WCU.

Education

• Ph D, University of Virginia, Mathematics
• MS, Florida State University, Mathematics
• BA, Francis Marion University, Mathematics

Teaching Interests

Despeaux has taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In particular, she has taught Freshman Seminars (on Fractals), Upper Level Perspectives (on the Scientific Revolution), and senior Capstone courses. She is cofounder of the North Carolina Network of Math Teachers’ Circles and is active in her local Smoky Mountain Math Teachers’ Circle.

Research Interests

Her research interests include the history of mathematics (especially the mathematics, mathematicians, and scientific journals in nineteenth-century Britain). Recently, she has been engaged in a research project on the early 20th-century mathematician, Oswald Veblen. This project involves around 20 scholars, including historians of mathematics, mathematicians, a philosopher of mathematics, and a historian of economics. <br><br>She is part of the PatriMaths : Patrimoines et patrimonialisations des mathématiques (XVIIIe-XXe) [Heritage and heritage-making in mathematics (18th-20th centuries)] project (https://patrimaths.hypotheses.org/ ) sponsored by the French National Research Agency (ANR). Her role in this four-year project focuses on how encyclopedias in 18^th- and 19^th-century Britain described mathematics of the past.