David Vella

Professor of Mathematics
Department Chair Fall 2014-Spring 2018
Director, Skidmore Honors Forum Fall 2007-Spring 2011

Office: CIS 340C
Telephone: (518) 580-5291
Email: dvella@skidmore.edu
Personal Web Page: David Vella

 

Professor Vella received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1983 and has been teaching mathematics courses for the department since 1988. His research interests include algebraic groups, Lie algebras and combinatorics.  His publications in these areas include a book in the Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society series, as well as papers with student co-authors Julia Varbalow '92 and Madeleine Burkhart ‘15.  In 2021, Cambridge University Press published his introductory textbook ‘Invitation to Linear Programming and Game Theory.’ 

Prof. Vella teaches a wide variety of courses for the department, including a Scribner Seminar on Game theory and voting, linear and abstract algebra, topology, complex analysis, and senior seminar. In addition, Prof. Vella organizes the Skidmore team of students who compete in the annual Putnam mathematical competition, and by being one of the organizers of the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (HRUMC), which brings together mathematics students from all over the Northeast to share their work every spring.