My name is Belin Manuel Tsinnajinnie.  My mother is Filipino and my father is of the Diné tribe.  Therefore, I am of the Filipino people, born for the Red Running Into the Water clan.  My maternal grandparents are of the Filipino people and my paternal grandparents are of the Black Streak in the Forest clan.  I come from Na’ Neelzhiin, New Mexico, a rural community near the eastern border of the Navajo reservation.  This is the proper introduction that follows the traditions of the Diné people

    Mathematics hasn’t always been my favorite subject, nor has it always been my best.  From kindergarten through my junior year I knew I was good at math, yet I never felt a real passion for mathematics.  This changed my senior year when my trigonometry teacher taught the entire course without textbooks.  The idea of taking a high school course without a textbook was a radical idea then and is likely a radical idea now.  However, this afforded me with the opportunity to see that my own understanding of mathematical ideas didn’t have to come from careful deconstruction of terse mathematical text.  I had the capacity to develop my own understandings, make my own conjectures, and construct my own mathematical knowledge.  Mathematics then wasn’t just something I was simply “good” at; mathematics became a source of empowerment.

    The continued pursuit of the sense of empowerment led me to the doctoral program in mathematics here at the University of Arizona.  My initial research was focused in the area of computational group theory, in which I wrote a masters thesis.  My research focus has now turned towards math education.  There were several factors for this shift, including perhaps the influence stemming from both of my parents being teachers, several of my aunts being teachers, and my grandmother being the first principal at the school in my home community of Na’ Neelzhiin.  More influential, however, was my desire to provide opportunities for all students to feel the sense of empowerment that mathematics has brought me.