Dr. Michael Starbird is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of UT’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He received his bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has remained at UT except for leaves including one to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He has received more than a dozen teaching awards, including several that are awarded to only one professor at UT annually, and the Mathematical Association of America’s 2007 national teaching award.

Starbird and co-author Edward B. Burger wrote the award-winning mathematics textbook for liberal arts students, The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking, and the trade book, Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas. His Teaching Company video courses in the Great Courses Series on calculus, statistics, probability and geometry annually reach thousands of people in the general public. In 1989, Starbird was UT’s Recreational Sports Super Racquets Champion.