Ivars Peterson

Ivars Peterson is a Canadian mathematics writer of Latvian descent.

Early life

Peterson was born to Arnis Pētersons and his wife Zelma Alīde , displaced persons from war-torn Latvia. In 1950, after emigrating to Canada as a child, he settled in McKenzie Island, part of the municipality of Red Lake in northwestern Ontario. In 1956, his family moved to Caribou Falls, and two years later to the city of Kenora and then to Toronto.
Peterson received a B.Sc. in Physics and Chemistry and a B.Ed. in Education from the University of Toronto. Peterson received an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Career

Peterson worked as a high school science and mathematics teacher.
Peterson has been a columnist and online editor at Science News and Science News for Kids, and has been columnist for the children's magazine Muse. He wrote the weekly online column Ivars Peterson's MathTrek. Peterson is the author of a number of popular mathematics and related books. Peterson has been a weekly mathematics columnist for MAA Online.
Peterson received the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award in 1991 for "exceptional skill in communicating mathematics to the general public over the last decade".
For the spring 2008 semester, he accepted the Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric and Science at East Tennessee State University. He gave a four lectures on how math is integral in our society and our universe. He also taught a course entitled "Communicating Mathematics".
In 2007, Peterson was named Director of Publications for Journals and Communications at the Mathematical Association of America.