Joseph G. (Joe)
Rosenstein
I
was a member of the Mathematics
Department of Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, from 1969 to 2017 (for 48 years!). I retired on July 1, 2017, and my
present title is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics.
I have a more extensive website at joerosenstein.com
(The photograph was taken at the launch of the
In the research portion of my career, I wrote a number of articles and published a research monograph Linear Orderings (Academic Press, 1982) in textbook form. The articles are all available at joerosenstein.com
For over 35 years I was heavily involved in K-12 mathematics education. This came about as a result of my serving as Director of the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics at Rutgers-New Brunswick. (Details are in my vita.) In recent years, I have been involved in the following six major kinds of educational enterprises that are described in more detail below (in the same order):
- organizing and directing professional development programs for K-12 teachers of mathematics,
- organizing and directing a four-week residential summer program for mathematically talented high school students,
- strengthening mathematics
education in
- directing the New Jersey Mathematics Coalition, which later evolved into the New Jersey Mathematics and Science Education Coalition,
- organizing and serving as
founding director of the
- writing instructional materials for K-12 teachers focused on discrete mathematics.
As a result of this work, and in a few cases as part of the Coalition's public outreach effort, I have prepared a number of articles and presentations on mathematics education. These are available at joerosenstein.com
In October 2014, I published Problem Solving and Reasoning with Discrete Mathematics, a textbook intended both for high school students and for college students intending to be K-8 teachers of mathematics, and also for all those interested in and curious about mathematics; it is available for review and purchase at joerosenstein.com.
In another arena, I have developed and published Jewish prayerbooks, one for the prayer services of Shabbat and festivals entitled Siddur Eit Ratzon (2006) (which also has a weekday edition), and one for the prayer services of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur entitled Machzor Eit Ratzon (2011). More recently, I have published three books in Judaica: Memorable Verses in the Torah, Reflections on Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): Not Just What My Rebbe Taught Me (2022), and Pirkei Avot: The Big Picture (2025); they are available for review and purchase at joerosenstein.com.)
I have been very active in the havurah movement, both locally, in the Highland Park Minyan, and nationally,
in the National Havurah Committee, which
provides a trans-denominational, egalitarian, participatory, communal, and
spiritual Jewish alternative. I have led guided meditations on Jewish prayers
and psalms and have published meditation tapes and articles on Jewish topics. These
too can be found at joerosenstein.com.
My wife Judy and I have five daughters (Mira, Ariela, Dalia, Neshama, and Nessa), and twelve grandchildren, the oldest of whom was born in April 2002 and the youngest in March 2019.
- Mira and her husband Psachya Septimus are proud parents of two sons, Aryeh Leib and Mordechai and one daughter, Devorah Gitel, who married Avraham Lavian in March 2025;
- Ariela and her husband Marc Cohen are proud parents of two sons, Amar Metta Medwin and Kayel Steven;
- Dalia and her husband Ozgur Gokirmak are proud parents of a two sons and a daughter, Eytan Atesh and twins Eliana Malka and Samuel Serkan;
- Neshama and her husband Dan Marcus are proud parents of a daughter and a son, Lauren Tirzeh (Aster) and Jonathan Shai; and
- Nessa and her husband Joel Madison are proud parents of a son and a daughter, Isaiah Ashoka and Jean Amalia.
Returning now to my activities in mathematics education, here are some details that are associated with the six bullet points above:
- since 1987, I have organized and directed a number of institutes for teachers. These include
- the Leadership Program in Discrete Mathematics from 1990 to 2009, which involved over 1000 teachers attending a two-week summer program that focused on discrete mathematics;
An outgrowth of the Leadership Program has been the publication of a book Discrete Mathematics in the Schools, published by the American Mathematical Society and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
- the Institutes for New Teachers of Mathematics and Science from 1987 to 2009, week-long induction programs for new math and science teachers in New Jersey;
- the Precalculus Conference, an annual one-day conference that attracted between 200 and 325 teachers each year from 1987 to 2020, when it was discontinued by Covid;
- one-day workshops for elementary, middle, and high school teachers of mathematics; over 50 workshops were offered during each school year until they were discontinued by Covid; the workshops during the 2018-2019 school year can be reviewed at dimacs.rutgers.edu/grades-K-5-workshops, dimacs.rutgers.edu/grades-6-8-workshops, and dimacs.rutgers.edu/grades-9-12-workshops.
- from 1990 to 2017, I directed the Young Scholars Program in Discrete Mathematics, a four-week residential summer program at Rutgers University for 30 mathematically talented high school students. Although the 2020 program was cancelled because of Covid, the program resumed in 2021 and has continued since then.
These programs for teachers and students are
sponsored by the Rutgers Department of Mathematics and the Center for Discrete
Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS); they were formerly sponsored
also by the
- from 1992 to 1997, I organized and managed the development of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework, a collaborative effort of the New Jersey Mathematics Coalition and the New Jersey Department of Education. The purpose of the framework is to provide guidance to teachers and districts on how to implement the New Jersey Mathematics Standards adopted by the New Jersey State Board of Education on May 1, 1996. The 668-page framework was completed in December 1996 and distributed throughout the state in 1997. I served as co-chair of the committee that produced the 1996 standards and of the committee that produced the revised New Jersey Mathematics Standards adopted by the State Board of Education in 2002.
- from 2001 to 2005, I
organized and served as founding director of MetroMath: The
Center for Mathematics in America's Cities, a Center for Learning and
Teaching funded by the National Science Foundation. The
- since its beginnings in 1991 (until 2007), I served as Director of the New Jersey Mathematics Coalition, which later evolved into the New Jersey Mathematics and Science Education Coalition. State coalitions were formed in order to generate public support for the changes recommended by the "standards" of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. An important Coalition initiative that I co-directed (with Warren Crown) was The FANS Project (Families Achieving the New Standards in Mathematics, Science, and Technology), which conducted over 1,400 hour-and-a-half workshops for over 30,000 parents to inform them about the standards and how they can help their children achieve them.
- since 2001, I have been involved in writing the following books on discrete mathematics for teachers and for students:
- a set of two volumes that are part of a series of volumes published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) to help teachers “navigate” through its mathematics standards (Principles and Standards for School Mathematics). These two volumes are entitled Navigating through Discrete Mathematics K-12, the first primarily for K-5 teachers and the second primarily for 6-12 teachers. These two volumes were prepared jointly by Valerie DeBellis, Eric Hart, Margaret Kenney, and myself, and were published by the NCTM in 2009 and 2008, respectively.
- a textbook for mathematics courses to be taken by prospective K-8 teachers. Written jointly with Valerie DeBellis, these materials are entitled Making Math Engaging: Discrete Mathematics for K-8 Teachers. The development of these materials was funded by a grant from the Division of Undergraduate Education of the National Science Foundation.
· as noted above, in October 2014, I published Problem Solving and Reasoning with Discrete Mathematics, a textbook intended both for high school students and for college students intending to be K-8 teachers of mathematics; this text (see at joerosenstein.com) involves major expansion, revision, and refocusing of Making Math Engaging.
And I have an extensive collection of interesting ties which are available for rental; see catalog for a complete display. In my spare time (?), I like to do word puzzles (not of the logic type), and occasionally create crossword puzzles on Jewish themes. More recently, I have been doing the daily Spelling Bee and Wordle puzzles on the NYTimes website, and mindlessly completing “hard” Sudoku puzzles.
Address
DIMACS – 405 CORE Building
Busch Campus,
96 Frelinghuysen Road
Phone
Send an email with your phone number and I will call you back.