Like Father, Like Son: For Woodbury Mathematics Professor, It All Adds Up as Pair Collaborate on Series of Textbooks

Dr. Yegoryan, an adjunct professor in the mathematics department at Woodbury University, and his son Hayk, an associate with McKinsey & Company in Chicago, teamed on Intermediate Algebra, published this month by Cengage Learning -- their fourth textbook in the last five years.  Education publishing giant McGraw-Hill bought the previous three textbooks -- Elementary Algebra, College Algebra and Business Math.  

"It was my son's idea to publish textbooks," Dr. Yegoryan said.  "At the time, he was a student at MIT and residing in Boston.  He suggested working on the textbooks together, so we collaborated virtually at first, via emails, though we didn't divide the work into specific portions for each of us to tackle."  Instead, they created a shared file in Dropbox, posted their initial drafts there, and continued developing material whenever they could find a convenient time.

'We like working together on books – collaborating became an excellent way for everyday communication," he recalled.  The Yegoryans spent about a year on the development of each book.  They have also published supplementary math books for schools and tutoring centers.  

"We give all sales rights to publishers because we are really not interested in the market dynamics of it," Dr. Yegoryan said.  "We simply hope that our textbooks help students master the necessary skills in math to become better at what they want to be.  We also hope that our books will be picked up by many individuals, and we think that there's a lot of value that these books offer to private schools or tutoring centers.  These types of schools tend to have a very skill-based focus on math education, which closely mirrors our own philosophy."

Dr. Yegoryan earned a PhD. in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at the Yerevan Physics Institute & St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics.  Hayk graduated from MIT in 2010, when he was only 21, with two degrees — a B.S. in Physics from M.I.T.'s Physics department and a B.S. in Management Science from M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management.  He went on to earn an M.S. in Managerial Economics from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

About Woodbury University
Founded in 1884, Woodbury University is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Southern California. With campuses in Burbank/Los Angeles and San Diego, the university offers bachelor's degrees from the School of Architecture, School of Business, School of Media, Culture & Design, and College of Liberal Arts, along with a Master of Business Administration, Master of Arts in Media for Social Justice, Master of Architecture (MArch), Master of Interior Architecture (MIA), Master of Science in Architecture (MSArch), Master of Leadership, and Master of Arts in Media for Social Justice. The San Diego campus offers Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture, Master of Interior Architecture and Master of Landscape Architecture degrees, as well as an MSArch degree with a concentration in Real Estate Development and Landscape + Urbanism.  Woodbury ranks 15th among the nation's "25 Colleges That Add the Most Value," according to Money Magazine and is a 2014-2015 College of Distinction.  Visit woodbury.edu for more information.

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SOURCE Woodbury University

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