Dr. Mike Axtell is an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.  Prior to this, he taught for eight years at Wabash College in Indiana after receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2000.  Mike has been very active in undergraduate research, spending the last five summers running an REU hosted by Wabash College which now features a world-wide alumni base of about sixty.  His area of research is in the field of abstract algebra, more specifically, commutative ring theory.  Dr. Axtell is particularly interested in the role played by zero-divisors in the study of rings.  When not terrorizing students or banging his head with frustration over his research, Mike enjoys reading and playing just about any sport badly.