CMU Faculty

Tim loves teaching. He sees his role less as a lecturer and more as a mentor who walks alongside students in their learning. He values the energy of small classes and the chance to know students personally, helping them discover the joys and challenges of mathematics and artificial intelligence.

Alongside teaching, Tim has built a research practice that is collaborative by design, regularly involving students and colleagues across disciplines. His applied work in machine learning and AI spans a wide range of real-world problems, from cancer biology and wetland restoration to genetics and community history. A current focus is the development of ethical, knowledge-grounded AI systems. One such project is a chatbot for the Manitoba Historical Society, built on retrieval-augmented generation to provide accurate, transparent responses about Manitoba's past.

Tim also brings scholarly attention to teaching itself. Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, he studies how AI tools can be integrated into mathematics and logic education in ways that are rigorous, supportive, and ethically sound.

At the heart of his work is a vision of education as formation, shaping not only knowledge but also character and purpose. Tim strives to cultivate inclusive spaces where students feel safe bringing their whole selves into the conversation, and where diverse perspectives are welcomed as essential to real learning. He encourages students to connect their passions with a larger purpose, exploring how mathematics and learning can contribute to a more just and flourishing world.

Outside of CMU, Tim enjoys volunteering, mountain biking, cooking, making music, and spending time with his family.

Areas of Teaching

Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence

Education

Certificate in Artificial Intelligence, University of Toronto, 2026; PhD, Mathematics, University of Manitoba, 2004; MSc, Applied Mathematics, University of Manitoba, 1998; BSc (Hons), Applied Mathematics, University of Manitoba, 1996; BRS, Mennonite Brethren Bible College, 1991

Work in Detail

Teaching

Tim teaches across a wide range of levels and audiences. New for 2026-27, The AI Revolution is an accessible, interactive course exploring the history, capabilities, and ethics of artificial intelligence. It has already run as a public continuing education course through CMU's Xplore program and joins the undergraduate curriculum in January 2027.

For students with no math background, he also offers Elements of Discrete Mathematics and Introductory Logic. For students in Science, Business, and Psychology programs, he covers statistics, calculus, and quantitative reasoning.

In 2026, Tim piloted MathBridge, an AI-powered statistics tutor, in collaboration with Forever Learning AI. MathBridge is designed to encourage learning and resist cognitive offloading. Students reported clearer understanding, more confidence, and less anxiety. They described it as fundamentally different from other AI tools: it stays focused on course content and behaves like a tutor, not an answer-generator. The fears about AI offloading aren't unfounded. But the answer isn't avoidance. It's design.

For mathematics majors and enthusiasts, he teaches Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems and Chaos, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra. Undergraduate research is embedded in several of these courses. Students have contributed to published work in cancer biology, ecological modelling, and AI.

Research

Tim's current research centers on ethical, knowledge-grounded AI and its applications in education and public institutions. A flagship project is an agentic chatbot for the Manitoba Historical Society, built on a local model running at CMU rather than a remote data centre. That means user conversations stay in Manitoba, the environmental footprint stays small, and the community retains control of its own data. The system grounds every response in verified Manitoba heritage data, cites its sources so users can check them, and acknowledges when an answer is uncertain or unavailable. Undergraduate students are involved as developers and research assistants, gaining hands-on experience building and evaluating a real system. The long-term goal is to make the model freely available to heritage and nonprofit organizations across the province. The project is a collaboration with Dr. Gordon Goldsborough and the Manitoba Historical Society.

Tim also studies the tools he teaches with. MathBridge is the subject of an ongoing mixed-methods study examining how AI-supported tutoring shapes student learning, confidence, and metacognition in introductory statistics. A second Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project traces how the iterative integration of AI across three offerings of Introductory Logic (2021, 2023, 2025) shaped student learning, independence, and interdisciplinary engagement.

Other active collaborations include work in cancer biology with Dr. Nicolas Malagon, deep learning and population genetics with Dr. Matt Thorstensen, and wetland rehabilitation in Zimbabwe with Dr. Rachel Krause.

Sample work

Rogalsky, Tim, Lia Campbell-Enns, Matthaeus Dyck, and Nicolas Malagon. "Robust Unsupervised Classification of Drosophila Cell Dynamics Using Dynamic Time Warping and Consensus Clustering of Engineered Features." In Proceedings of the World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (Las Vegas, USA, July 21–25, 2025). Forthcoming. Cham: Springer Nature.

Hosseini Moghadam, Mohammadreza, Hadiya Omer, Anastasia Dilello, Lia Campbell-Enns, Paula Pineda, Derek Neufeld, Sofia Ertulova, Stephen Ingram, Ernest Ho, Tim Rogalsky, and Juan Nicolas Malagon. 2025. "How Do Small Adjustments in Apical Surface Area Impact Tissue-Wide Homeostasis?" MicroPublication Biology 2025 (August):  https://doi.org/10.17912/micropub.biology.001727.

Rogalsky, T. "Rethinking Intelligence: An Anabaptist Dialogue with Artificial Intelligence." Leader Magazine. Vol. 21, Summer 2024, pp 7-9.

Rogalsky, T. "Salvador Dalí: Mathematical Mystic." In: Dyck, P. and Huebner, H. (eds). A University of the Church for the World. CMU Press, Winnipeg, 2016, pp 161-182.

Derksen, R.W. and Rogalsky, T. "Bézier-PARSEC: An optimized aerofoil parameterization for design." Advances in Engineering Software. Vol. 41, Issues 7-8, July/August 2010, pp 923-930. 

Applied

Selected talks and workshops

"Responsible Use of AI." Various workshops for teachers and learners, 2023-present. 

Rogalsky, T, Micah Boschmann, Ben Kilbrei, Duku Abodigin, Naomi Van Benthem, Octavian Bourdon. 2024. "Nestled Allies: Richardson's Ground Squirrels and Artificial Burrows in the Conservation of Burrowing Owls." Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society Annual Meeting, Kingston, Ontario, June 24, 2024.

"This Event is Generated by Artificial Intelligence: Conversations with ChatGPT." Face2Face organizer, presenter, and host, Canadian Mennonite University, November 15, 2023.

Rogalsky, T. "Pandemic-Inspired Learning Strategies for Endemic Times." 34th annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Virtual event, March 14, 2022.

"Why Beauty Matters: Radical Amazement, Spirituality, and the Ecological Crisis." Face2Face panel organizer and presenter, Canadian Mennonite University, November 2, 2016.

Community

Production Coordinator, Board Member, and Violist with the Mennonite Community Orchestra (2022–present).

Volunteer with the Winnipeg Folk Festival (2010–present).

Volunteer with Triathlon Manitoba and Ironman Canada (2022–present).

Performed as Reuben in the Dramatic Theatre Company's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (April 2023).

Volunteer with the Threshermen's Reunion and Stampede at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum (2016–present). In 2016, I was one of hundreds of threshers in the (then) Guinness-World-Record-breaking harvest with 139 simultaneous antique threshing machines!