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Short Bio

Kate Ertmann is a math researcher, writer, and keynote speaker on how math shows up in our everyday lives and how it’s a secret decoder skill for making your best choices. She helps math make sense in the real world while celebrating and honoring the work of the academics. Recently, she was featured on the BBC Radio 4 program Sideways about the creativity of math, brought some mathematical thinking onstage at SXSW-Sydney, and she currently serves on the The Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) editorial board as a communication liaison between the academics and the I-guess-math-is-ok folks.

Long Bio

Before the age of 30, Kate Ertmann was wrapped up in the world of film and television – first as a child actor in NYC, then after earning a BS in Telecommunications from Ohio University she continued moving westward and worked as an Indie Filmmaker, then a TV Commercial Producer, and eventually a Digital Producer for multi-platform campaigns.

It was when she started utilizing 3D animation in her projects that she realized it was a perfect coupling of the entertainment world she’d been immersed in all her life and the math & science world that she loved but had been keeping behind-the-scenes. Kate soon became a partner at Animation Dynamics Inc in 2000, the sole owner in 2008, and then grew the company to the point of sale in 2014.

Kate’s subsequent work as an Organizational Design consultant focused on the intersection of humans:financials, working with companies and their teams in a variety of industries so that they could thrive in the 21st century workplace. As start-ups were frequently in her client-base, she took a one-year hiatus from the consultancy to be the COO at Qcut, a fashion/tech hybrid making women’s jeans in 400 sizes to fit 8 different body types and all heights.​ ​

In 2022, Kate created Kate Loves Math*, a blog of math-centric essays that offers an explanation for the why behind all the happenings and a how for navigating through it all. It’s a space where she can use her voice to share what she’s ingested from years of gobbling up all-things-math, and elaborate on how she realized that she could – and did, and still does – apply those learnings in her work as an Organizational Designer as well as in her own day-to-day experiences.

As an active part of her community, Kate was a board director for 6 years with Bradley Angle, the oldest domestic violence services organization on the west coast, and then a board director for 5 years with Bitch Media, the publication that provided an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture for over 25 years. She was the President of Rotary Club of Portland (2019/20) and has served as a board director as well as a board trustee in her 15+years as a Rotarian. Kate has received honors from her peers, including an Orchid Award for being one of Portland’s Most Influential Women.

She is currently on the editorial board for the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Math Values blog, serving as a translation bridge between the academics and the I-guess-math-is-ok folks.

Most important of all: Kate’s favorite food is buttered popcorn.