Springfield, Ohio – With a mind-boggling ability to perform rapid mental calculations faster than the calculator, internationally renowned mathematician and professor Arthur Benjamin will present “Mathemagics” at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 20, in Wittenberg’s Bayley Auditorium inside the Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center. The event, which is free and open to the public, is the first in the newly created Community Speaker Series sponsored by the new Bullock Math Academy at Wittenberg.

Having appeared on several national programs, including The Today Show, CNN, The Colbert Report and NPR, Benjamin has also been profiled in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Discover Magazine, Esquire, Wired, People and Reader’s Digest, among others.  His two TED talks have been viewed to date nearly 6 million times, and Reader’s Digest has called him “The Math Whiz.”

A professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd College since 1989, Benjamin is the co-author with Michael Shermer of Secrets of Mental Math as well as co-author with Jennifer Quinn of Proofs That Really Count: The Art of Combinational Proof, which was named one of the Outstanding Academic Titles for 2005 by Choice, the principal review journal for academic libraries.

Benjamin earned a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983 and a Ph.D. in mathematical sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 1989. His teaching has been honored repeatedly by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). In 2000, he received the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo National Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. The MAA also named Benjamin the 2006–2008 George Pólya Lecturer.

Founded in 2012, Wittenberg’s Bullock Math Academy provides sought-after enrichment opportunities for local middle-school students who demonstrate a high aptitude in math. Students will start with the academy in 7th grade and stay with the academy through high school and beyond. Upon their high graduation, academy graduates will then receive a scholarship to help with college. The academy was established thanks to a generous investment by Springfield philanthropist Rosalyn Bullock, who credits her attorney, Daniel C. Harkins, for the idea, as well as her late husband’s love of math.

For more on the Bullock Math Academy, visit www.bullockmathacademy.org.

Written By: Karen Gerboth