Brianna Kurtz is an expert in secondary and post-secondary mathematics education with experiences in teacher training, development and classroom engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Her research interests focus on issues of global and international education, particularly in the recovery of education after interruptions due to natural disasters. She is also extensively published on issues of culturally responsive education within mathematics and statistics. 

Kurtz has received four teaching excellence awards, was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays projects-abroad grant to engage in culturally response mathematics education in Botswana and Namibia, and served as Co-PI for an NSF grant focused on keeping students from underrepresented populations in STEM. Additionally, she was selected to receive specialized training through the United Nations UNA-USA in international diplomacy, focusing her contributions on global issues in STEM education. Currently, she serves as a board member at-large for the Comparative and International Education Society, prior to which she served as chair of its Global Mathematics Special Interest Group. She also currently engages with the research institute RTI International as they develop mathematics deliverables to be used in the Global South as a part of a new partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Central Florida with an additional graduate certificate in global, comparative and international education. She received an M.S. in mathematics with concentrations in applied mathematics and statistics from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a B.S. in engineering science from Vanderbilt University. She has seventeen years of mathematics, statistics, and education collegiate teaching experience, including appointments at Daytona State College and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Stetson University and Mary Baldwin University. 

This year, Kurtz will serve as course coordinator for MATH 1220, a survey of calculus II, and will supervise the doctoral students and undergraduate learning assistants involved in the delivery of the course. With course redesign, she is working to make the calculus experience more culturally responsive and applicable to the student body.