Alison M. Marr (born 1980) is an American mathematician and mathematics educator. Her research concerns

graph theory In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of ''graph (discrete mathematics), graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of ''Vertex (graph ...

and

graph labeling In the mathematical discipline of graph theory, a graph labeling is the assignment of labels, traditionally represented by integers, to edges and/or vertices of a graph. Formally, given a graph , a vertex labeling is a function of to a set ...

, and she is also an advocate of

inquiry-based learning Inquiry-based learning (also spelled as enquiry-based learning in British English) is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. It contrasts with traditional education, which generally relies on the teach ...

in mathematics. She works as a professor of mathematics and computer science at

Southwestern University Southwestern University (Southwestern or SU) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwester ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Education and career

Marr graduated from

Murray State University Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky, in the Southern United States. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper-level an ...

in 2002, and earned a master's degree in mathematics at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

in 2004. She completed her Ph.D. in 2007 at

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of T ...

; her dissertation, ''Labelings of Directed Graphs'', was supervised by Walter D. Wallis. She has been a member of the mathematics faculty at Southwestern University since 2007. She was department chair for 2015–2018. Beyond mathematics, her teaching at Southwestern has included a freshman seminar on television game shows.

Contributions

Inquiry-based learning

Marr is an advocate of

in mathematics, a style of teaching through student research rather than through presentation of packaged solutions that is closely related to the

Moore method The Moore method is a deductive manner of instruction used in advanced mathematics courses. It is named after Robert Lee Moore, a famous topologist who first used a stronger version of the method at the University of Pennsylvania The ...

. She was one of the founding officers of the inquiry-based learning special interest group of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

, which was established in 2016. She is an editor of the ''Journal of Inquiry-Based Learning in Mathematics'', and serves on the board of directors of the Initiative for Mathematics Learning By Inquiry.

Graph theory

With Walter Wallis, Marr is the author of a book on magic graphs and graph labeling, ''Magic Graphs'' (2nd ed., Springer, 2013). She spoke about magic graph labelings as an invited speaker at the Midwest Conference on Combinatorics, Cryptography, and Computing in 2011.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Marr, Alison M. Living people 1980 births 21st-century American mathematicians Graph theorists American mathematics educators Murray State University alumni Texas A&M University alumni Southern Illinois University alumni Southwestern University faculty 21st-century American women mathematicians