Charles Wells received the B.A. in mathematics from Oberlin College in 1962 and the Ph.D. in mathematics from Duke University in 1965. He is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Case Western Reserve University and Affiliate Scholar at Oberlin College. He co-authored two books in category theory and wrote research papers in two different fields. He has also served as a consultant for a major dictionary. During his 34 years at CWRU, he taught many different college courses in calculus and post-calculus mathematics and kept notes of the types of difficulties the students had with the topics they studied.