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Spencer Hamrick's Statistics Resources

About Me

Hi! I am from the state of North Carolina and I graduated in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. I worked as an engineer for 10 years before going to Georgia State University in Atlanta to get a master’s in math education. Have taught stats, math, engineering, and computer science at 8 colleges and universities in 5 different states. Married with kids.

Neat Facts:

  • I am mostly fluent in Spanish because I lived in Mexico for 3 years while I was an engineer.
  • I grew up on a dairy farm.
  • I am a former spelling bee champ and finished 18th in the state of NC in my best year.
  • My favorite TV show of all time is The Office.
  • I like to travel, especially internationally (I haven't done as much since we had kids). Countries I have visited: Mexico, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal. See below for some cool pictures of Argentinian penguins, Roman sculpture, and a video of a glacier calving in Chile.

Colleges Where I Have Taught

Southern Crescent Technical College - Thomaston, GA and Griffin, GA
Gordon State College - Barnesville, GA
Broward College - Coconut Creek, FL; Davie, FL; and Weston, FL
Prairie View A&M University - Prairie View, TX
Lone Star College - Cypress, TX
Ivy Tech Community College - Lafayette, IN
Purdue University - West Lafayette, IN

Courses I Have Taught

Intro to Statistics
Inferential Statistics
Healthcare Statistics
Developmental Algebra
College Algebra
Quantitative Reasoning (aka Liberal Arts Math)
Business Calculus
Finite Math
Solidworks (3D CAD modeling)
MATLAB (computer programming and engineering problem solving)

Places I Have Lived

Places I Have Visited

Argentina and Chile

I went on a trip to Argentina and Chile to the area of Patagonia, which is in the southern parts of those countries. I hiked on glaciers, saw penguins and an avalanche. I also did some traditional hiking and saw an Argentinian cousin of the llama, called the guanaco! The picture of me by the sign is the end of the road in the southern hemisphere. The sign tells the distance from there to Alaska, something like 11,000 miles.

I took this video from the back of a boat. The amount of ice that fell caused a mini tsunami so we had to end of tour right after.

Italy

These pictures are from my trip to Italy. We visited Venice, Rome, and Florence, but also spent a day in Verona (where the story of Romeo and Juliet is set) as well as 3 days in Cinque Terre, which is Italian for 5 Lands. It is 5 cities on the jagged west coast of Italy connected only by footpaths and a train track.

Spain and Portugal

Finally here are some pictures from Spain and Portugal. I nerded out in Barcelona and really enjoyed seeing Gaudi’s work, which is based heavily on mathematics. The first picture below is a large church called La Sagrada Familia. Gaudi used a lot of mathematics to create his designs. The archways in his house were designed using catenaries, which can be modeled using math! And you ask me, “When am I ever gonna use this stuff??"

Then we went to Madrid and later on to a tiny beach town in southern Portugal called Faro.

Life With Kids

Now, I am no longer an international jet-setter. But I still get to travel and do fun things with the kids. We do Disney, camping, beach trips, and cruises (do cruises count as international stops if you get off the boat and walk around for 4 hours??) Plus a few pics of random things we see when we stick around home.