Meet The Distance Calculus Team

Unlike many other distance education courses, ALL instruction, grading, feedback, and interaction with the students is completed by qualified HUMAN instructors. We do not use AI or Multiple Choice or other automated grading mechanisms.

Head Professor: Robert R. Curtis, Ph.D.

Robert completed his B.A. with Highest Honors in Mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1987, followed by his M.A. and Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego, in 1993, writing in algebraic geometry with advisors George Kempf and Adrian Wadsworth.

Robert began 1991 teaching at Delta College in California, traveling one day to visit master teacher Phil Smith in his new mathematics computer lab at American River College in Sacramento. Phil's students were learning Calculus II using a new graphical computer algebra program called Theorist, accomplishing long u-substitution integration problems with drag-and-drop ease on the Macintosh, a coupling of computer algebra usage with visual and symbolic learning. The new field of Distance Mathematics Education was born from a single Mac computer in Delta colleague Chris Barker's office, empowering Theorist files to be click-launched on the World-Wide-Web via the new Netscape (now Firefox) browser.

In 1995, Robert moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to found MathMonkeys, and purchased Theorist in 1999, rebranding it to LiveMath. Robert continues to lead the programming team working on a Qt-based LiveMath to return it full multiplatform glory.

Robert co-founded the Distance Calculus program in 1997, originally at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts; later moved to Shorter University in Georgia, and now at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, USA, where Robert is the Head Professor and Program Director of the University College program.

Robert adapted the Calculus&Mathematica courseware series into LiveMath, as well as adding to further development of this wonderful curriculum series originally written by Bill Davis and Jerry Uhl, et al. Robert is currently working on the adaptation of the Alfred Grey's Differential Geometry Using Mathematica text to the Distance Calculus platform.

On a good day at low tide, Robert can be found at sunrise on a long beach walk with a thermos of coffee percolating new and interesting ways to experience mathematics empirically with computer algebra.

Primary Email: robert@distancecalculus.com

Instructor: Tatiana Marina Lollo

Primary Email: tatiana@distancecalculus.com

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Distance Calculus - Student Reviews

Malia K.★★★★☆

Posted: Mar 16, 2020

Courses Completed: Applied Calculus

Course was good and fast. I don't like math so I can't say it was fun or anything. Grader was very nice. Software was ok.

Transferred Credits To: University of Maine

James Holland★★★★★

Posted: May 3, 2018

Courses Completed: Calculus I, Calculus II

I needed to finish the Business Calculus course very very very fast before my MBA degree at Wharton started. With the AWESOME help of Diane, I finished the course in about 3 weeks, allowing me to start Wharton on time. Thanks Diane!

Transferred Credits To: Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

Douglas Z.★★★★★

Posted: Jun 6, 2020

Courses Completed: Multivariable Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Probability Theory

I loved these courses. So in depth and comprehensive. The mix of software and math curriculum was tremendously helpful to my future studies and career in engineering. I highly recommend these courses if you are bored of textbook courses.

Transferred Credits To: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Lucas L.★★★★★

Posted: Jun 25, 2026

Courses Completed: Multivariable Calculus

The professor as well as the TAs give great feedback when you need help with problems and the videos are great at explaining concepts. Return time on work is good and the work is not too much to handle.

Transferred Credits To: University of Wisconsin

Hari K.★★★★☆

Posted: Jun 24, 2026

Courses Completed: Linear Algebra

This course gives a perspective on Linear algebra that no traditional course does. I’d say i gained much more intuition for this subject from the DC course than my friends who took traditional courses elsewhere. As a cs major, this version of learning with visualization has helped me a lot in understand ML models. However the course doesn’t have videos for the last 2 chapers so i had to self learn with the mathematica notebooks. Response times are a little slow but since it’s a remote class, i guess it’s justified. Overall amazing course and definitely take this over traditional lin alg classes.

Julia★★★★★

Posted: Jun 24, 2026

Courses Completed: Calculus I

As a full-time business owner completing an Executive MBA, I needed to satisfy a calculus prerequisite without putting my work on hold. Distance Calculus made that possible. The fully self-paced structure let me work early mornings and weekends around an unpredictable schedule, which a fixed-semester classroom course never would have allowed.
The course covered the core business calculus material thoroughly — derivatives, optimization, integration techniques including u-substitution, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, improper integrals, and numerical methods. The LiveMath computer algebra environment was central to the experience: it forced me to build each step explicitly rather than just arriving at an answer, which actually deepened my understanding of the mechanics.
Communication through the student portal was responsive when I had questions. For working professionals who need a rigorous, accredited calculus course on a flexible timeline, I'd recommend it.

Transferred Credits To: MIT Ebma