Maia Kelley became a member of the College Western Idaho Mathematics Department in the fall of 2013. She served as the department chair from the fall of 2013 through the summer of 2017. In the fall of 2017, she transitioned to full time mathematics faculty in order to spend more time in the classroom. Prior to her arrival at CWI, she spent 10 years as a member of the mathematics faculty at Emmanuel College in Boston.
Maia started her collegiate career at a community college in her home state of Illinois, Illinois Central College. From there she transferred to Saint Olaf College in Minnesota where she earned a B.A. in Mathematics and spent a semester studying in Japan, Hong Kong, China, and Thailand. After Saint Olaf, she headed south to attend graduate school at Clemson University in South Carolina. At Clemson, she earned an M.S. in Mathematical Sciences.
In addition to her experience in academia, Maia has worked as a Department of Defense contractor for the Navy's F/A-18 program, a computer programmer for a medical software company, a truck loader for UPS, and a cashier at Target.
As the product of a community college herself, Maia firmly believes in the advantages to be gained by attending a community college. She is grateful to be a part of the same system that gave her such an excellent start to her academic journey.
When not on campus, Maia enjoys reading, camping, and biking. As a second degree black belt in tae kwon do, she also enjoys breaking stacks of wood but those opportunities are harder to come by.
