Jennifer Firkins Nordstrom Wins Distinguished teaching Award

Jennifer Firkins Nordstrom was awarded the 2026 PNW Section of the MAA Distinguished Teaching Award at the recent Spring Section Meeting hosted at her home institution, Linfield University.

As part of the nomination, Kate Lorenzen, provided an wonderful summation of Jennifer’s work: ``Jennifer is an extraordinary teacher where her students feel challenged yet supported throughout the curriculum. She has continuously developed her teaching methods to meet changing student populations at Linfield. Her work with inquiry-based and team-based learning sets students up to develop math community in addition to their creative thinking and problem solving. She has been an active member of several national grants around developing and testing course materials for this style of teaching and has developed three textbooks emphasizing this style of learning. Beyond the classroom, Jennifer started an outreach program to mentor rural middle school students on math projects for their STEM fair and connect them with college students.”