Greetings and welcome to MAT 2680! My name is Professor Poirier and my pronouns are she/her. I grew up in Canada and actually went to art school before I went to school for math. My family still thinks that “this math thing” is kinda weird, even after all these years, but they’re very supportive! I did my Bachelor’s in math at the University of Toronto, then I moved to New York to complete my PhD in math at the CUNY Graduate Center. I spent three years as a postdoc in Berkeley, California before returning to New York for my job at CityTech and I’ve been here for 10 years now (which is wild, seriously, getting old is so weird).

In addition to teaching, I do research in math in a field called topology, which is very visual and geometric so it kinda combines my interest in math and art.

I like running and reading and I do both of those a lot in my free time. I’ve run at least one mile every day since January 1, 2020… I’ve never had covid (as far as I know) which is incredibly lucky and has meant I haven’t had to miss a day of running!

One boring fact about myself is that I have several identical black hoodies and I wear one almost every single day, when the weather permits.

I love most animals (not bugs!) and have two elderly cats. One cat is pretty sick with heart disease but she’s been doing great lately and we’re so happy that she still seems to love being alive. She’s a very sweet lil ol’ lady!

A photo of a calico cat outside in the grass