Larry Lesser, The Mathemusician

“Find, find the value of pi -- starts 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
A good ol’ fraction you may hope to divine, but the decimal never dies ....”

--  from Larry Lesser’s “American Pi”

 

photo © 1999 Lauren Davis

 

Lesser performs during the keynote presentation for a district-wide in-service for Cherry Creek School District’s K-12 teachers in Denver.

 

CONTACT INFO:
www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/lesser/

 

ABOUT THE MATHEMUSICIAN:  To support his mission in increasing awareness and motivation in mathematics, Professor Lesser has tapped and merges two of his great loves – math and music.  His thoughtful and entertaining math songs have proven especially unique and popular, attracting international media coverage (including Australia’s largest newspaper and newstalk radio interviews from El Paso to Jamaica!) and leading to full-length opening session presentations for major conference audiences ranging from mathematicians (e.g., the opening banquet session at the annual national summer meeting of the Mathematical Association of America; see p.14 of Aug/Sept 2008 FOCUS) to mathematics teachers (e.g., an SRO audience of 800+ at the 2009 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics regional conference in Nashville). Yet another type of audience was reached by Lesser’s short performance to kick off the 2009 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics, which earned Lesser the USCOTS “Entertainer of the Year” award!   Lesser has internationally published dozens of math lyrics as well as the first juried comprehensive articles on using songs in math/statistics class.  As the Mathemusician (some say “the Weird Al Yankovic of mathematics education”), Lesser brings his guitar to classrooms and keynotes, facilitating explorations and performing raps and musical parodies, creatively adapting popular lyrics towards math topics such as infinity, pi, problem solving, graphing functions, as well as even more worldly applications such as understanding the lottery!  for more detail about his math-and-music activity, click here ;  for a brief overall bio, see this next paragraph: 

 

DR. LESSER’S OVERALL BIO:  An Associate Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso since 2004, Lesser has taught mathematics, statistics and mathematics education courses in Georgia, Colorado, and Texas.  His time in Texas also includes work as a state agency statistician and as a full-time high school math teacher and department chair.  His research/scholarship includes 50+ peer-reviewed papers/books in statistics/mathematics education (including the co-authored 2009 edition of the COMAP/Freeman math-for-liberal-arts textbook For All Practical Purposes), 50+ national/international talks, and has led to service on several national/international research or editorial boards (including being a founding editor of Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics). His research/scholarship has been cited in 20+ journals and his teaching innovations have attracted stories/interviews in international mass media including CNN Headline News, Australia’s largest newspaper, and Jamaica newstalk radio.    (for more detail about his overall background, click here)

   

Resources & Bibliography | Lyrics of Greatest LESSER hits | Cool Math & Music Quotes
  More On Lesser | Presentations &Press   | Contact Info