Jon Pierre Fortney, Ph.D.
Contact
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
UMBC
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250, USA

Phone: 410–455–2403
Email: jpfortne@umbc.edu
Office: Sherman Hall 147D

Office Hours Fall 2024: MWF 1pm.–2pm., TTh 11am.–12pm., and by appointment.

My CV
About me
I am a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) with over twenty years of teaching experience. I have been at UMBC since Fall 2024. Prior to that I spent twelve years teaching in the Middle East, primarily at Zayed University, along with holding a visiting assistant professor postion at the University of the Virgin Islands and a posistion as an instructor at the University of Arizona.
Education
Scholarly Interests
Broadly speaking, my scholarly interests mainly focus teaching and pedagogy. First, I am interested in pedagogy and expository writing and have published two undergraduate-level textbooks and have finished the third. The first was published in 2018, the second in 2020, and the third will be published in Fall 2024. Second, I am interested in effective and interesting methods to teach mathematics and to assess and evaluate learning.
In particular, I am interested in the pedagogy of teaching all levels of geometry. Euclid’s Elements of Geometry reigned as the canonical text on geometry for two thousand years until the nineteenth century brought the realization that there are numerous examples of non-Euclidian geometries (projective, inversive, affine, hyperbolic, and elliptic geometries.) In 1872 Felix Klein provided a unifying theoretical framework which resulted in a single classification system for these disparate geometries. This was achieved by viewing each geometry as a space together with a group of transformations of the space. Indeed, these geometric transformations play an important role in art and graphic design. Tessellations, repeating patters, and symmetry of any kind, are graphical representations of underlying mathematical transformations. It is my hope that this will be the subject matter for a future book.
Books
  1. J.P. Fortney and Linda Smail, “Calculus for Business and Economics: An Example-Based Introduction,” CRC Press, 2024

    Calculus for Business and Economics: An Example-Based Introduction is a calculus book exclusively intended for first-year university students majoring in business and economics. As such, this book is unique in several important ways. Unlike most calculus books currently used for business calculus classes, this book exclusively focuses on business and economics applications. This focus allows for an exceptionally clean, succinct, and targeted presentation of the mathematical material, resulting in an easy-to-read, concise, and in-depth presentation. Each chapter concludes with a section illustrating the practical business and economics applications of the covered mathematical concepts.

  2. J.P. Fortney,“ Discrete Math for Computer Science: An Example-Based Introduction,”, CRC Press, 2020

    This book is intended for a first- or second-year discrete mathematics course for computer science majors. It covers many important mathematical topics essential for future computer science majors, such as algorithms, number representations, logic, set theory, Boolean algebra, functions, combinatorics, algorithmic complexity, graphs, and trees.

  3. J.P. Fortney, “ A Visual Introduction to Differential Forms and Calculus on Manifolds,” Birkhauser Press, 2018

    This book explains and helps readers to develop geometric intuition as it relates to differential forms. It includes over 250 figures to aid understanding and enable readers to visualize the concepts being discussed. The basic ideas and concepts are gradually built up so that definitions, when made, do not appear out of nowhere, and both the importance and role that theorems play is evident as or before they are presented. With a clear writing style and easy-to-understand motivations for each topic, this book is primarily aimed at second- or third-year undergraduate math and physics students with a basic knowledge of vector calculus and linear algebra.

Publications
  1. J.P. Fortney,“ Basis Independence of Implicitly Defined Hamiltonian Circuit Dynamics,” in T. Abualrub et al. (eds.) Mathematics Across Contemporary Science, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics 190, pp. 77–90, Springer International, 2017
  2. J.P. Fortney, “ Dirac Structures in Pseudo-Gradient Systems with an Emphasis on Electrical Networks,” IEEE Transactions of Circuits and Systems – I: Regular Papers, Vol. 57, No. 8, Aug. 2010.
  3. D.J. Parrillo, J.P. Fortney, R.J. Gorte, “ A Comparison of Adsorption and Reaction Properties in Cu-ZSM-5 and Cu-Y,” Journal of Catalysis, Vol. 153, No. 1, Apr. 1995
    4. My Google Scholar page
Courses Taught
  • Finite Mathematics (UMBC/Math 215)
  • Applied Calculus (UMBC/Math 155)
  • Special Topics: Differential Forms and Calculus on Manifolds (UA/Math 496T)
  • Calculus Preparation(UA/Math 120R)
  • Business Calculus (UA/Math 116)
  • Elements of Calculus (UA/Math 113)
  • Modeling with Algebraic and Trigonometric Functions (UA/Math 108)
  • Differential Equations (UVI/Mat 346)
  • Intermediate Calculus II (UVI/Mat 342)
  • Calculus for Business and Social Sciences (UVI/Mat 232)
  • Number Theory (UVI/Mat 215)
  • Modern Geometry (ZU/Mth 361)
  • Elementary Geometry (ZU/Mth 261)
  • Statistics (ZU/Mth 281)
  • Discrete Math (ZU/Mth 215)
  • Business Statistics (ZU/Mth 213)
  • Business Calculus (ZU/Mth 113)
  • Modeling with Functions (ZU/Gen 111)
  • Modeling with Data (ZU/Gen 110)
  • Basic Mathematics (ZU/Mth 101)
  • Calculus III (ASU/Mat 272)
  • Calculus II (ASU/Mat 271)
  • Calculus I (ASU/Mat 270)
  • Elementary Linear Algebra (ASU/Mat 242)
  • Brief Calculus (ASU/Mat 210)
  • Precalculus (ASU/Mat 170)
  • Finite Math (ASU/Mat 119)
  • College Algebra (ASU/Mat 117)