Alan Russell's love for folding paper began at age seven, when his mom gave him an origami book. Today, Russell, an associate professor of mathematics, gets to perform his passion regularly, teaching an interdisciplinary course, Math Origami, at Elon University.

This course, an Upper Level General Studies class, is open to all majors, who often combine their major studies with the creativity of origami throughout the semester. Marketing majors have crafted websites for paper companies, and science students have researched how origami designs can be used in their fields. Russell welcomes students from every area of study to his class because he likes to place a greater focus on the creativity behind origami and not just the mathematical aspects of it.

"I look at it from an art perspective, a cultural perspective," Russell said. "We look at the history of origami, and of course I bring the mathematics to it."

Russell's origami work has now given him opportunities that extend beyond the classroom. He received a National Science Foundation grant that lets him study a stretchable plastic that can fold by itself through origami designs. Russell is working with a team of other professionals around the state, hoping to turn this theory into reality.

"Some people started doing some digging, and it turns out I'm fairly well-known in the state for origami," Russell said. "So, a friend of a friend put me in touch with them, and they received a $1.8 million grant from NSF to study origami and engineering and art."

Creating origami pieces in as little as 30 seconds and in as much time as 90 minutes, Russell loves being able to share his hobby with others. He is inspired by a variety of international origami artists, and makes both serious, architectural designs and small, silly creations.

"I love anything that I can wear as a hat," Russell said. "So I can make a small piece, but if I stare at it long enough, I...can make it a large size and make it into a hat. I'm a big fan of hats."

Russell is known for his Hawaiian shirts, which he now wears to every class. He feels that these shirts make him and his course appear more approachable, and his students rave about his friendliness and kind nature. Russell brings a smile to class every day, and his positive personality shows in the math origami coursework, which is often linked to some sort of humanitarian effort. Combining creativity with service work each semester, his class has created projects after tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings.

"We've created a lot of these thousand cranes projects and have given them to local cancer centers, and places like that," Russell said. "So that's meaningful."

Russell says for him, math origami is more than just a typical class.

"On its surface, it seems like it's just folded paper, but when you get a little bit deeper, there's so much more," he said. "It's so rich, and deep, and meaningful, in lots of different ways".

Combining numbers with creativity, innovation and individual self-expression, Russell doesn't plan to stop crafting origami anytime soon.