Rate My Professor Andrew Leahy

Andrew Leahy serves as Chair and Rothwell C. Stephens Distinguished Service Professor of Mathematics at Knox College, a position reflecting his long-standing contributions since joining the faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 1995. He advanced through the ranks to Assistant Professor from 1996 to 2002, Associate Professor from 2002 to 2019, and full Professor since 2019. Leahy earned his B.A. summa cum laude in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Latin from St. Olaf College in 1989 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Rutgers University in 1995, where his thesis focused on Multiplicity Free Representations under advisor Friedrich Knop. Prior to Knox, he served as Instructor and Teaching Assistant at Rutgers from 1989 to 1995. His academic journey includes election to Phi Beta Kappa in 1989 and a National Needs Fellowship from 1990 to 1991.

Leahy's research centers on the historical development of mathematical ideas in calculus—examining pre-Leibniz and Newton techniques for tangents and curve rectification—and modern algebra, particularly 19th-century invariant theory's role in commutative ring theory and its modern revivals by Mumford and Rota. Key refereed publications include “The Method of Archimedes in the Seventeenth Century” (The American Mathematical Monthly, 2018), “A Fourth Century Theorem for Twenty-First Century Calculus” (The College Mathematics Journal, 2018), “William Neile's Contribution to Calculus” (The College Mathematics Journal, 2016), “Evangelista Torricelli and the 'Common Bond of Truth' in Greek Mathematics” (Mathematics Magazine, 2014), and “A Classification of Multiplicity Free Representations” (Journal of Lie Theory, 1998). He has contributed translations and articles to MAA Convergence, such as on Torricelli's Quadratura Parabolae (2017). Leahy has received the Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching (2003), Illinois Section MAA Distinguished Service Award (2009), and ACM FaCE Grant (2017), among others including NSF grants as co-PI. He teaches functions, calculus, differential equations, mathematical statistics, analysis, and history of mathematics, and has delivered numerous presentations at MathFest, ISMAA, and Midwest History of Mathematics Conference on early modern mathematics topics.