Matt was born in Fremont, Ohio and graduated from Fremont Ross High School. Later, he attended Ohio University where he earned a BS in Mathematics Education with a minor in History. After graduating, Matt moved to Cleveland and attended John Carroll University where he earned an MS in Mathematics. He then taught at Northern Virginia Community College outside of DC for a year before moving to Columbia, South Carolina where he pursued a PhD in Mathematics at the University of South Carolina under the advisement of George Androulakis. He obtained his PhD in 2015. Afterwards, Matt moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to start work as an Assistant Teaching Professor at Drexel University, where he taught for ten years. In the summer of 2026, Matt and his wife relocated to Ames, Iowa so he could begin work as an Assistant Teaching Professor at Iowa State University.
Matt is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Advanced Undergraduate Mathematics at Iowa State University. His primary area of expertise is functional analysis. In particular, he is interested in operator algebras, semigroups of operators, operator theory, and their applications to mathematical physics. His research has primarily focused on quantum Markov semigroups, which are used to model irreversible open quantum systems.
Matt has taught at the collegiate level for more than seventeen years and has experience teaching a wide array of courses which include Single-Variable Calculus, Multivariate Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Probability and Statistics, and Topology. Matt has also directed independent study courses in Measure Theory and Fractal Geometry. He has coauthored a functional analysis textbook which is expected to be available by January 2027 and has authored a topology textbook which was recently accepted for publication.
Matt Ziemke 