About me

2022

Now Teaching     Elementary Statistical Inference

               Intermediate Statistical Methods

Contact Info     Office Armstrong 211-P

               Phone (304) 293-2011

               Fax (304) 293-3982

               Email rhansen@mail.wvu.edu

               Address See Department

The essence of mathematics is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.

~S. Gudder

I completed my undergraduate work at Berry College in Rome, Georgia and received my B.A. in music performance: clarinet and a B.S. in mathematics in spring of 2005 and subsequently moved to Morgantown, West Virginia to attend West Virginia University.  I began pursuing my master’s degree and Ph.D. in Fall 2005 receiving a M.S. in pure mathematics in December of 2007.  I was hired as an Instructor of Mathematics over the summer of 2008 and continued pursuit of the Ph.D. which I completed in spring of 2022.

My mathematical interests range almost as much as my taste in music and include areas such as topology, algebraic topology, knot theory, graph theory, matroid theory, cryptography, combinatorics, and number theory.

My current research interests fall within the field of combinatorics, in particular, extremal combinatorics, extremal hypergraphs, and polychromatic colorings as well as work in 3D printed manipulatives and their use in enhancing the classroom experience.