Dr. Connor Thomas Albach '09

Despite his young age, Dr. Connor Thomas Albach, Class of 2009, is already an accomplished mathematics professor at Texas State University. Graduating from Harvey Mudd University after Archbishop Riordan, then getting his PhD at the University of Washington, Albach is now a published author of a college math textbook titled, “Euclidean Linear Algebra.”

Albach said that his textbook teaches linear algebra in a way that emphasizes “more preparation for (more difficult) mathematical theory” and offers up a “different style of order of introducing things and emphasis on certain concepts that I thought were underutilized.”

Throughout all of Albach’s success at the college, doctorate and professional level — he credits his start at Riordan for giving him the proper tools and support to fully explore his love of learning and ignite a passion especially for mathematics.

“I got to access a lot of math that I had seen before (at Riordan),” Albach said. “Some faculty even recommended math camps that I went to over the summer, because that's what nerds do over the summer.”

As a student, Albach completed all of the mathematics courses that the school had to offer, and even got a head start on his collegiate career by taking college-level classes at CCSF “because I finished all the math classes at Riordan,” he said.

Albach was also a member of the team that won the San Francisco division of the California Mathematics League in 2009, as well as part of a high school program called Math Circles at USF — where he discovered a love specifically for combinatorics — an area of math primarily that concerned counting and arranging.

“Riordan started me on this path,” he said.

Albach also had extra motivation to achieve academically because his father, John Albach, was a teacher at Riordan while he was there. John Albach recently retired after teaching for many years.

But Riordan didn’t just develop Albach’s brain, the school is where he grew holistically as a person — like as an athlete on the cross country team, as a writer in his English classes and within the community, where he always felt like he belonged as a Crusader.

“I started out really shy when I was a freshman. And Riordan had a good sense of community where I was able to grow, " he said.

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