Jo Hardin

Affiliation:
Professor of Mathematics, Pomona College

Educational Background:
BA, Mathematics, Pomona College
MS and PhD, Statistics, University of California

About Jo
Jo Hardin mostly grew up in Portland, Oregon, but she ended up attending three high schools (in Oregon, Michigan, and Ohio) due to her family moving. When it came time to attend college, she was set on returning to the West Coast and she found a home at Pomona College.

Jo’s dad was an actuary, so she thought about a career in a mathematical field, possibly even becoming an actuary herself. But once she got to college, she fell in love with academia and found herself working toward a career as a statistics professor. She eventually returned to Pomona College and is now a professor of mathematics.

The personal highlights of Jo’s teaching work at Pomona have been to continually revamp her courses to make them more accessible, more relevant, and more interesting to her students. She loves bringing in statistics from the news and ethical dilemmas driven by quantitative analyses. It is rewarding to see students engage with the material beyond the formulas and derivations. Additionally, she pushes her students to embrace new ideas and technologies, like GitHub, so they graduate with necessary skills to hit the ground running in whatever they choose to do next.

For her work, she has been honored with the µσρ William D. Warde Statistics Education Award (2018), MAA Hogg Award for Excellence in Teaching Introductory Statistics (2014), ASA Waller Education Award (2007), and teaching awards from Pomona.

Recently, Jo has been involved with cohort programs designed to improve success rates for students traditionally under-represented in mathematics / statistics / college. She is a Posse mentor for a group of students from the Chicago Public School District. Additionally, she started a program at Pomona College, Pomona Scholars of Mathematics (PSM), designed to build community and support students who are navigating college mathematics. Happily, quite a few of the inaugural PSM students are now in graduate programs in the mathematical sciences.