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Hortensia Soto

Hortensia is a Professor of Mathematics at Colorado State University. She has been a member of the MAA since 1989. In 1996, as a Project NExT fellow, she became an involved member and in 2002 she began her role as a working member of the MAA. Her first working role was as the Governor for the Rocky Mountain Section; this led to serving on numerous MAA committees. Such committees include the Strategic Planning Committee Finance Working Group, the Minicourse Committee, and the Carriage House Advisory Board. She later served as secretary/treasurer of her section and the Governor for Minority Representation, which led to serving on the Committee for Professional Development.

She first became a member of the Executive Committee in 2013, when she began her 4-year term as the Associate Treasurer, which included serving on the Budget Committee (as chair), the Investment Committee, and the Compensation Committee. Currently, she serves as the Associate Secretary where she primarily organizes the annual meetings. She has also served as the Chair and Treasurer of the SIGMAA on RUME. Furthermore, her expertise in mathematics education was instrumental in creating the MAA Instructional Practices Guide. Most recently, she received the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.

As a mathematics educator, Hortensia has published in various areas of mathematics education including assessment, mathematical preparation of elementary teachers, outreach efforts for high school girls, and especially in the area of teaching and learning of undergraduate mathematics. Her current research efforts are dedicated to investigating the teaching and learning complex analysis, where she adopts an embodied cognition perspective and is part of the Embodied Mathematics Imagination and Cognition community. Since her days as an undergraduate student, Hortensia has mentored young women and promoted mathematics via summer outreach programs. She has also been involved with facilitating professional development for K-16 teachers in Nebraska, Colorado, and California. Currently, she is delivering professional development to collegiate teachers as part of Project PROMESAS SSC (Pathways with Regional Outreach and Mathematics Excellence for Student Achievement in STEM).