I teach many courses in the mathematics curriculum, from those for non-majors to graduate school preparatory courses and lots of things in between. Whether you are a committed mathematician or someone who simply knows that mathematics provides a good foundation for almost any discipline, you are welcome into the Math program at St. Olaf.

I spent the first part of my career doing research in algebraic topology (stable homotopy theory and classifying spaces of groups), but gradually moved toward questions motivated by algebra rather than topology. Currently I am working on how to use the subgroup structure of solvable groups to determine information about automorphism groups.

I am deeply committed to providing research experiences in mathematics for St. Olaf students (who wouldn’t want to conjecture and then prove a theorem that no one else in the world has ever done?!) and often teach our Directed Undergraduate Research course (Math 396). Student research projects tend to have at least a tangential relationship to my own scholarship. Ask me more sometime.

Away from St. Olaf I love to be in nature, especially camping and hiking in the mountains, or boating and swimming at “the cabin” up in central Minnesota (on the best lake in the state, Big Trout, pictured above).

Contact Information

Email: dietz at stolaf.edu

Office: RMS 500

Phone: 507.786.3936

Address: 1520 St. Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057

Office Hours

You can find my official office hours here, but you can always try to swing by RMS 500 or email me for an appointment.  If you’re on the St. Olaf network, you can see my Google calendar and find out when I might be available.