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Tensor Women & Mathematics Awardees

Announcing the 2023 Tensor Women Grant Recipients

  • Project Title: Clayton State University's Laker STEM Sisters
  • Project Director: Catherine Matos
  • Project Summary: The Laker STEM Sisters is an effort to engage and support female students at Clayton State who are pursuing degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, or engineering. It will build a community of women students and those who support each others’ endeavors, helping them to overcome the various hurdles they might encounter and develop strategies to balance their work and family obligations with their academic and career goals. The club will promote women in STEM disciplines by providing support for student travel to professional and academic conferences. The club will also bring in a series of speakers who are Atlanta-area women working in industry and government positions related to mathematics, computer science, and engineering to discuss their own experiences as women in STEM. Additionally, the club will empower its members by developing a mentoring program with a local middle school, having the club members support and encourage 6th-8th grade girls in their STEM aspirations.
  • Project Title: The Lesley Math Circle
  • Project Director: Kate Hendrix
  • Project Summary: The Lesley Math Circle is for middle school girls, particularly in underserved populations, and is designed to be a safe and encouraging place to make math fun and help students grow in their confidence. Students will engage in activities that explore a range of mathematical topics, many outside of or extensions to, the school curriculum. In addition to learning about mathematical concepts, we emphasize the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as the skills for successful and engaging group discussion. The path through which we travel to explore mathematical concepts will be open to redirection by the students’ ideas and questions, with a focus on why the math works, not just how the math works.
  • Project Title: Arizona Women's Symposium in Mathematics (AWSiM 2023)
  • Project Director: Angie Hodge-Zickerman
  • Project Summary: The Arizona Women’s Symposium in Mathematics (AWSiM) will take place on November 17-18, 2023 at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. This weekend-long conference will be the second of its kind in Arizona where women mathematicians across the state can share their research in a supportive environment, form a strong network of women mathematicians within the state, and develop action plans to increase the recruitment and retention of women in mathematics in their respective institutions in Arizona. AWSiM will feature three plenary speakers and will have contributed talk sessions for participants. It will also include a teaching workshop on equity and inclusion facilitated by Dr. April Strom (Chandler-Gilbert Community College). Drs. Angie Hodge-Zickerman, Angelynn Alvarez, Barbara Boschmans, and Christina C. will lead sessions centered on the challenges encountered by women in mathematics (as faculty/instructors and as students) where participants will develop immediate and long-term action plans for increasing recruitment and retention in their respective institutions.
  • Project Title: GirlsGetMath@Stonehill
  • Project Director: Leyda Almodóvar Velázquez
  • Project Summary: GirlsGetMath@Stonehill is a five-day non-residential mathematics program at Stonehill College in Easton, MA for students entering the 10th or 11th grade in the fall of 2023. At GirlsGetMath@Stonehill students will explore the mathematical sciences in an open and encouraging setting. Accomplished faculty will lead hands-on activities, interactive lectures, and daily computer labs on topics such as cryptography, data science, image processing, and mathematical modeling. GirlsGetMath@Stonehill aims to provide an affirming environment that introduces high school students to a variety of career opportunities in which sophisticated mathematical ability plays a key role and to show young adults that the study of mathematics can be exciting, beautiful, and useful. We wish to provide a network of mentors to support the students and have a positive influence on the way they view their mathematical interest and ability.
  • Project Title: SWARMS: Supporting Women to Achieve Research in Mathematics at South
  • Project Director: Joanna Furno
  • Project Summary: Supporting Women to Achieve Research in Mathematics at South (SWARMS) is a year-long program to increase the participation of undergraduate women in research at the University of South Alabama. In the first semester, undergraduate students will enroll in a research seminar course that teaches research skills, discusses departmental colloquium talks, and requires participation in a team-based research project. The program will bring women mathematicians to give colloquium talks and speak with the class about their careers and research experiences. In the second semester, selected students will continue working on research with a faculty mentor and will present their results at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at South. This program will set a precedent for participation of women in research as the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at South continues to offer the redeveloped research seminar and develop its honors program.
  • Project Title: 2024 Workshop to Forge the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences
  • Project Director: Martha Makowski
  • Project Summary: The third iteration of the workshop for Forging the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences, taking place in Spring 2024, will again bring together advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty working in or towards careers in the mathematical sciences in Alabama who identify as a cis or trans woman or are comfortable in a space that centers on the experiences of women. The primary goal of the workshop is to connect Alabama women working (or planning to work) in the mathematical sciences while providing opportunities for multi-tiered mentoring and gender-specific professional development. Workshop activities will include a mixture of informal networking, general sessions designed to build professional knowledge, career-stage specific professional mentoring, and peer mentoring. In addition, workshop activities will facilitate exploration of how gender expression shapes professional experiences, connect participants at different career stages, and build a robust network within Alabama of women working in the mathematical sciences. To promote the forging of long-term relationships, the workshop will provide time for peer-mentoring groups, formed based on career stage, to make plans for supporting each other moving forward. These plans will be surveyed and facilitated by members of the workshop planning committee.
  • Project Title: GirlsGetMath@Dearborn
  • Project Directors: Yulia Hristova
  • Project Summary: GirlsGetMath@Dearborn is a five-day summer mathematics enrichment program for high-school students held at the University of Michigan – Dearborn. Participants are immersed in an encouraging environment that emphasizes experimentation and collaboration with peers and mentors. Students learn topics in applied mathematics and coding, and work in groups on fun team building activities. Several female-led panels are held during the week, where invited speakers discuss topics ranging from college applications to careers in STEM. Throughout the program, contributions of women to mathematics and engineering are highlighted.
  • Project Title: Math Craft Laboratory
  • Project Director: Amanda Niedzialomski
  • Project Summary: The Math Craft Laboratory is an academic year workshop series for high school women through the University of Tennessee at Martin. The program seeks to give students a playful, creative experience of mathematics through experimentation and group discovery. The Math Craft Laboratory will host four daylong workshops over the 2023-2024 academic year where students will explore rich, open-ended scenarios from geometry, combinatorics, graph theory, and topology. Students will collaborate in groups of their peers alongside group mentors in an encouraging and supportive environment. The workshops will also spotlight math-related careers and give students networking opportunities with the University of Tennessee at Martin faculty. This program seeks to serve the young women of rural Northwest Tennessee by growing their confidence and excitement in mathematics, encouraging them to consider careers that use mathematics, and providing them with an ongoing support network.
  • Project Title: UW-Superior Sonia Kovalevsky Day
  • Project Director: Kristin Riesgraf
  • Project Summary: The University of Wisconsin–Superior’s Sonia Kovalevsky Day (SK Day) is a math day where 9th through 12th female high school students come to campus for fun mathematical activities and career information. Modeled after successful SK Days held across the country by members of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), the purpose is to expose young women to the beauty of mathematics, encourage female students to continue their study of mathematics in their future endeavors, and to assist teachers of women mathematics students. During SK Day, participants rotate through math workshops, which are led by local mathematics professors and cover a variety of topics typically not covered in the high school math classroom. Additionally, the event will include opportunities for career exploration, which will be made up of a panel of local female professionals that use math in their jobs, and opportunities to talk with current undergraduate math and computer science students to learn about what it's like to be a college student in these programs. This event will also provide pre- and post-event workshops for the teachers where we will provide them with resources that they can implement in their classroom. These resources will support their work of encouraging their young female students to pursue math related studies and support our mission of increasing the number of female students in math.
  • Project Title: Girls Talk Math (GTM)
  • Project Director: Francesca Bernardi
  • Project Summary: Girls Talk Math (GTM) is a free two-week mathematics and media day camp for girls and non-binary rising 9th-12th grade students. The third chapter of GTM was hosted at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA for the first time in the summer of 2022. Campers work in groups on challenging, hands-on mathematics problem sets and write a blog post about their solutions. Campers also write and record a podcast about modern and historical mathematicians from marginalized groups. Camper-produced media is available on the camp website, iTunes, and SoundCloud.

 


MAA's Tensor Women & Mathematics program supports projects designed to encourage college and university women and pre-college girls to study mathematics. If you’re interested in holding a Tensor Women & Mathematics program like these, learn more here.

The Tensor Foundation also supports projects designed to encourage the pursuit and enjoyment of mathematics by students of groups historically underrepresented in mathematics. Learn more about MAA Tensor SUMMA here.

Read About Previous Awardees

 

2022          2021          2020          2019          2018

2022

  • Project Title: GirlsGetMath@CSU
  • Project Director: Jamie Juul
  • Project Summary: GirlsGetMath@CSU is a weeklong summer mathematics camp for rising 10th and 11th grade high school students held at Colorado State University and modeled after GirlsGetMath@ICERM and other successful expansions of the program nationwide. GirlsGetMath@CSU seeks to encourage young women to pursue careers in mathematics and STEM related fields. The program exposes students to mathematical and computational activities through a variety of topics in mathematics which are not typically taught in high school, such as cryptography, data science, image processing, and graph theory. Students are immersed in a supportive mathematical community of learners where content is delivered through inquiry-based instruction, games, hands-on activities and computer labs in MATLAB. All camp activities are designed to engage students in collaborative group work and foster their agency as women in mathematics.
  • Project Title: Arizona Women's Symposium in Mathematics (AWSiM)
  • Project Director: Angelynn Alvarez
  • Project Summary: The Arizona Women’s Symposium in Mathematics (AWSiM) will take place on November 5-6, 2022 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. This weekend-long conference will be the first of its kind in Arizona where women mathematicians across the state can share their research in a supportive environment, form a strong network of women mathematicians within the state, and develop action plans to increase the recruitment and retention of women in mathematics in their respective institutions in Arizona. AWSiM will feature two plenary speakers, Dr. Donatella Danielli (Arizona State University) and Dr. Deborah Hughes Hallett (University of Arizona), and will have contributed talk sessions for participants. It will also include a teaching workshop on equity and inclusion facilitated by Dr. April Strom (Chandler-Gilbert Community College). Drs. Angelynn Alvarez and Angie Hodge-Zickerman will lead sessions centered on the challenges encountered by women in mathematics (as faculty/instructors and as students) where participants will develop immediate and long-term action plans for increasing recruitment and retention in their respective institutions.
  • Project Title: Mercy Actuarial Pathways (MAP)
  • Project Director: Lauren Ruth
  • Project Summary: A career in actuarial science offers an opportunity to work with interesting mathematics on a daily basis. Mercy Actuarial Pathways (MAP) will create pathways for undergraduate women at Mercy College to become actuaries by providing them with industry connections, study materials, exam prep sessions, and coverage of exam fees. The short-term goal of this pilot program is for six women to take and pass Exam FM or Exam P during the 2022-2023 school year. The long-term goal is to develop a permanent certificate program offered jointly between the School of Liberal Arts (which houses the Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences) and the School of Business. Over time, MAP will lead to increased enrollment of women in calculus, calculus-based probability, and financial mathematics courses, thereby strengthening the sense of community among female undergraduates and encouraging their mathematical development.
  • Project Title: GirlsGetMath@Stonehill
  • Project Director: Leyda Almodovar Velazquez
  • Project Summary: GirlsGetMath@Stonehill is a five-day non-residential mathematics program at Stonehill College in Easton, MA for students entering the 10th or 11th grade in the fall of 2022. At GirlsGetMath@Stonehill students will explore the mathematical sciences in an open and encouraging setting. Accomplished faculty will lead hands-on activities, interactive lectures, and daily computer labs on topics such as cryptography, data science, image processing, and mathematical modeling. GirlsGetMath@Stonehill aims to provide an affirming environment that introduces high school students to a variety of career opportunities in which sophisticated mathematical ability plays a key role and to show young adults that the study of mathematics can be exciting, beautiful, and useful. We wish to provide a network of mentors to support the students and have a positive influence on the way they view their mathematical interest and ability.
  • Project Title: 2022 Workshop to Forge the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences
  • Project Director: Martha Makowski
  • Project Summary: The 2022 will be the second workshop for Forging the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences. This one-day event will bring together advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty working in or towards careers in the mathematical sciences in Alabama who identify as a cis or trans women or are comfortable in a space that centers on the experiences of women. The primary goal of the workshop is to connect Alabama women working (or planning to work) in the mathematical sciences while providing opportunities for multi-tiered mentoring and gender-specific professional development. Workshop activities will include a mixture of informal networking, general sessions designed to build professional knowledge, career-stage specific professional mentoring, and peer mentoring. In addition, workshop activities will facilitate exploration of how gender expression shapes professional experiences, connect participants at different career stages, and build a robust network within Alabama of women working in the mathematical sciences. To promote the forging of long-term relationships, the workshop will provide time for peer-mentoring groups, formed based on career stage, to make plans for supporting each other moving forward. These plans will be surveyed and facilitated by members of the workshop planning committee.
  • Project Title: Mathematics Project at Minnesota
  • Project Director: Max Engelstein
  • Project Summary: The Mathematics Project at Minnesota (MPM) is a week-long workshop for undergraduates at the University of Minnesota and is run by graduate students. The workshop aims to increase the participation and success of women majoring in mathematics by building community, providing mentorship, and instilling participants with a sense of mathematical empowerment. MPM has run successfully for four years (in 2021 virtually), with a steady increase in the number of participants each year. Events at MPM highlight career opportunities in math (in academia and beyond) and issues facing women in math, including discussions on imposter syndrome and implicit biases. There is also a strong mathematical component: participants work collaboratively on problem sets, attend talks on interesting and accessible topics by post-docs and faculty (for example, topological data analysis), and give a short presentation on a mathematics topic of their choice.
  • Project Title: SWARMS: Supporting Women to Achieve Research in Mathematics at South
  • Project Director: Joanna Furno
  • Project Summary: Supporting Women to Achieve Research in Mathematics at South (SWARMS) is a year-long program to increase the participation of undergraduate women in research at the University of South Alabama. In the first semester, undergraduate students will enroll in a research seminar course that teaches research skills, discusses departmental colloquium talks, and requires participation in a team-based research project. The program will bring two women mathematicians to give colloquium talks and speak with the class about their careers and research experiences. In the second semester, selected students will continue working on research with a faculty mentor and will present their results at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at South in Fall 2023. This program will set a precedent for the participation of women in research as the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at South continues to offer the redeveloped research seminar and develop its honors program.
  • Project Title: Girls Talk Math at WPI
  • Project Director: Francesca Bernardi
  • Project Summary: Girls Talk Math (GTM) is a free two-week mathematics and media day camp for girls and non-binary rising 9th-12th grade students. The third chapter of GTM will be hosted at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA for the first time in the summer of 2022. Campers work in groups on challenging, hands-on mathematics problem sets and write a blog post about their solutions. Campers also write and record a podcast about modern and historical mathematicians from marginalized groups. Camper-produced media is available on the camp website, iTunes, and SoundCloud.

 

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2021

  • Project Title: Sophie's Circle Mentoring Program
  • Project Director: Lily Silverstein
  • Project Summary: We propose a department mentoring program with two branches. The Women in Mathematics Mentorship Program (WMMP) will pair 6-8 volunteer faculty with one student mentee each; for regular meetings. The goal of the WMMP is to increase the number of female and underrepresented students who form relationships with faculty and who gain invaluable advice on degree completion, undergraduate research experiences, advancing to graduate school, and preparing for the STEM workforce. The Women in Mathematics Undergraduate Research Experiences (WMURE) is more project-based. 3-4 mathematics faculty will supervise teams of 2-3 students in engaging mathematical research experiences. The WMURE program will conclude with a student research symposium. As is this case with the WMMP, it is our hope that by piloting a small-scale program with just a few teams we can lay the foundation for a new, separately funded program. Many students at our polytechnic, Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) cannot leave the area for a summer REU since they have children of their own or family commitments, especially our veterans. Respecting these commitments and their commitment to mathematics, we hope to bring mathematical research opportunities to them.
  • Project Title: Humber Math Camp for Girls
  • Project Director: Priscilla Bengo
  • Project Summary: The Humber Math Camp for Girls (HUG) is a six-week math enrichment camp for girls in Grades 8 and 9. Students will be introduced to fun topics not taught in middle-school math, real-life applications of mathematics, and hands-on activities. Students will research and create a multimedia presentation on the contributions of a woman in mathematics in groups. They will spend one hour each week learning about post-secondary institutions, examining math-related careers, and participating in mentoring activities, and one hour each week meeting inspirational women with careers in mathematics through the guest speaker sessions. The goals of the camp are to improve the rate of girls persisting in math, improve self-concept and engagement.
  • Project Title: Mercy Actuarial Pathways (MAP)
  • Project Director: Lauren Ruth
  • Project Summary: A career in actuarial science offers an opportunity to work with interesting mathematics on a daily basis. Mercy Actuarial Pathways (MAP) will create pathways for undergraduate women at Mercy College to become actuaries by providing them with industry connections, study materials, exam prep sessions, and coverage of exam fees. The short-term goal of this pilot program is for six women to take and pass Exam FM or Exam P during the 2021-2022 school year. The long-term goal is to develop a permanent certificate program offered jointly between the School of Liberal Arts (which houses the Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences) and the School of Business. Over time, MAP will lead to increased enrollment of women in calculus, calculus-based probability, and financial mathematics courses, thereby strengthening the sense of community among female undergraduates and encouraging their mathematical development.
  • Project Title: EDGE Reach
  • Project Director: Ami Radunskaya
  • Project Summary: The EDGE (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) Foundation proposes to expand its reach through the development and implementation of an online workshop, to be run concurrently with the existing Summer Program. The program, entitled EDGE Reach, will provide a select number of EDGE Summer Program applicants with a rigorous experience in Machine Learning. Participants will engage in a number of real-time classes, receive notes and problem sets, and attend collaborative working sessions. All activities will be held online. This project will prepare participants for graduate school by providing experience in computational mathematics via an introduction to Machine Learning, a topic often excluded in the undergraduate curriculum.
  • Project Title: Forging the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences
  • Project Director: Martha Makowski
  • Project Summary: The Forging the Yellowhammer Network of Women in the Mathematical Sciences workshop will bring together female and non-cis gendered graduate students and faculty working in Alabama (the Yellowhammer state) to provide field-specific professional development and mentoring. The primary goal of the one-day workshop is to connect female and non-cis gendered graduate students and faculty working in the mathematical sciences to engage with opportunities for multi-tiered mentoring. In addition, the workshop seeks to facilitate exploration of how gender expression shapes professional experiences in the mathematical sciences and begin forging an active network of female and non-cis faculty members in Alabama. Workshop activities include a mixture of informal networking, general sessions designed to build professional knowledge, career-stage specific professional mentoring, and peer mentoring. To promote the relationship building beyond the workshop, time during the event will be provided for peer-mentoring groups, formed based on career stage, to make plans for supporting each other moving forward. These plans will be surveyed and followed up on to assess the project’s success.
  • Project Title: Mathematics Project at Minnesota
  • Project Director: Paul Carter
  • Project Summary: The Mathematics Project at Minnesota (MPM) is a week-long workshop for undergraduates at the University of Minnesota and is run by graduate students. The workshop aims to increase the participation and success of women majoring in mathematics by building community, providing mentorship, and instilling participants with a sense of mathematical empowerment. MPM has run successfully for four years (in 2021 virtually), with a steady increase in the number of participants each year. Events at MPM highlight career opportunities in math (in academia and beyond) and issues facing women in math, including discussions on imposter syndrome and implicit biases. There is also a strong mathematical component: participants work collaboratively on problem sets, attend talks on interesting and accessible topics by post-docs and faculty (for example, topological data analysis), and give a short presentation on a mathematics topic of their choice.
  • Project Title: Girls in Math Club
  • Project Director: Elena Pavelescu
  • Project Summary: Girls in Math (GiM) is a program for middle school girls and it consists of two components. The first component of the program is the Girls in Math Day, a half day on campus event with a keynote speech and several mathematics workshops lead by women mathematicians. The second component is the weekly Girls in Math Club to be held on the South Alabama campus. During the Math Day and the Math Club, students participate in hands-on activities and explore applications of mathematics in social sciences, art and science. Activities are planned with the goal of allowing students to engage with math through self-discovery.
  • Project Title: Texas Women in Math Symposium 2022
  • Project Director: Shelly Harvey
  • Project Summary: The Texas Women in Math Symposium (TWIMS) is a conference series that takes place at a different institution in Texas each academic year. The next TWIMS will take place at Rice University on February 5-6 2022. The ongoing goal of TWIMS is to highlight the research and professional accomplishments of several outstanding late career female mathematicians, as well as provide an opportunity for early career mathematicians to present their work and build a network. TWIMS 2022 will feature two plenary lectures, several research lectures, a poster session, and career development workshops.

 

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2020

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 awardees were given the option to defer their funding until 2021. Those awardees are indicated with a *.

  • Project Title: GirlsDoMath Summer Camp
  • Project Director: Tracii Friedman
  • Project Summary: (This grant was originally awarded in 2020 but the project was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) The GirlsDoMath Summer Camp is a week-long mathematics enrichment camp for girls entering 8th and 9th grades. The camp begins with hands-on activities that introduce exciting topics in mathematics that the girls are not likely to have seen in their traditional school curriculum. Camp participants choose one of the topics to explore in more depth, resulting in a poster presentation on the final day of the camp. The camp also includes “guest spots” throughout the week in which women working in STEM fields and faculty members from the university will give short inspiring presentations about careers and topics in STEM. The goals of the camp are to provide mathematics enrichment activities to girls early in their education; to introduce girls to careers that require a strong background in mathematics; and to improve girls’ perceptions of women (themselves included) as mathematicians.
  • Project Title: Dixie Tensor Scholar Program
  • Project Director: Bhuvaneswari Sambandham
  • Project Summary: The Dixie Tensor Scholar Program is a year-long mentoring program for female students to increase retention rates among math majors by highlighting the advantages and benefits of studying mathematics through the lens of their future careers. Students in the Dixie Tensor Scholars Program will attend monthly talks, have monthly lunch meetings, maintain a portfolio and participate as mentors and facilitators to high school girls during the “Maryam Mirzakhani” Day held during Mathematics Awareness Month.
  • Project Title: Doane GEMs: Girls Engaged with Mathematics
  • Project Director: Margaret Watts
  • Project Summary: Doane University proposes to develop a year-long Girls Engaged with Mathematics (GEMs) after-school program for young women in grades 6, 7, and 8. University faculty and undergraduate students from the Doane Crete campus will meet with the GEMs participants at least eight times throughout the academic year on the Doane campus to provide fun and challenging mathematics activities that will increase student confidence in mathematics, skills in doing mathematics, and awareness of mathematics careers and post-secondary pathways in mathematics. The GEMs program will conclude with an end-of-year celebration in which the families of participants can learn about what they have accomplished during the year. Dr. Margaret Watts, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Data Analytics, will serve as the Project Director. Dr. Barbara Jennings-Herzog, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Mathematics Department, and Emmeline Watson, Visiting Professor of Mathematics and Engineering, will support the development and implementation of GEMs. Doane will partner with the local school system, Crete Public Schools, and faculty and staff there to implement the GEMs program with the target demographic.
  • Project Title: DukeGEM
  • Project Director: Victoria Akin
  • Project Summary: Duke Girls Exploring Math (DukeGEM) is an innovative mentorship program and workshop series designed to address the gender gap in math and more broadly in STEM. The DukeGEM program connects women across multiple stages in the STEM pipeline. In each academic year, an interdisciplinary team of professors brings together a community of undergraduate women and trains them to facilitate workshops for middle school girls. After a full semester of training, the undergraduate mentors (guided by the faculty team leaders) host weekend workshops for middle school girls from Durham Public Schools. DukeGEM workshops are unique in that they combine mathematics problem solving with interactive discussions of the socioemotional factors that affect persistence in STEM. Each workshop includes both a hands-on math puzzle and a gender-and-STEM discussion activity. DukeGEM workshops are innovative because they use a social identity approach to build and nurture STEM-compatible beliefs, and the workshops use problem-based learning techniques to build skills and confidence in mathematical problem solving. Summer workshops include laboratory visits with female STEM practitioners at Duke to provide female role models. Workshops throughout the year and the summer are used as a vehicle to build mathematical and socioemotional skill sets so that middle school girls may persevere in STEM.
  • Project Title: Girls Count in Allegany County
  • Project Director: Jill Jordan
  • Project Summary: High school girls growing up in Allegany County (NY) have few opportunities to see how math can enrich their lives compared to their peers from wealthier, more densely populated areas. Girls Count in Allegany County (GCAC) seeks to provide these students with regular opportunities to encounter mathematics outside of their classrooms by planning monthly events from September to May, followed by a sustained experience with math during a summer math camp in July. Houghton College math majors will participate alongside the high school girls and their teachers in order to develop a mathematical community and to provide the opportunity for informal mentoring relationships to develop.
  • Project Title: The Kovalevsky Society Mentoring Program
  • Project Director: Allison Lewis
  • Project Summary: The Kovalevsky Society is a peer mentoring program in the Mathematics Department at Lafayette College. The organization is open to all female and non-binary students interested in pursuing a degree in mathematics. Students meet monthly in small peer clusters and are matched one on one with an alumna mentor to discuss their career options and build their post-college network. In addition, Lafayette’s Kovalevsky Society hosts multiple special events each year, including alumnae panels, workshops, and outreach events with local K-12 schools.
  • Project Title: Lesley Math Circle
  • Project Director: Kate Hendrix
  • Project Summary: The Lesley Math Circle (LMC), part of the Lesley University WonderLab, works with middle school girls who are interested in expanding their understanding of math beyond the classroom setting. Math Circle was designed specifically to target middle school girls, which research has identified as a critical period when girls can develop confidence and an interest in mathematics and encourages girls to include and pursue math as academic and/or career choice. The program offers active enrichment activities in an environment that fosters creative problem solving, clarity of reasoning, discussions, solution sharing, team work, and develops, organizational skills, strengthens confidence, and improves verbal communications. Math Circle provides a safe and encouraging place to make math fun; helps students gain confidence in mathematics; expands their mathematical thinking skills; encourages peer interactions and support, and provides mentoring.
  • Project Title: Meredith STEM Summer College
  • Project Director: Julia Kolb
  • Project Summary: Check back in 2021 for more information about this project!
  • Project Title: We Do Math (WDM): College Women Facilitating a Summer Mathematics Experience for High School Girls
  • Project Director: Jennifer Whitley
  • Project Summary: (This grant was originally awarded in 2020 but the project was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) The purpose of our project is to provide a mechanism for high school girls interested in math to be mentored by some of our female mathematics students at Park. “We Do Math (WDM)" would be a free one-week summer day camp at Park University for high school girls throughout the Kansas City metro area. Our project has three interconnected goals: (i) develop a culture where girls may explore mathematics concepts that spark their confidence and further interest in mathematics, (ii) develop mentorship and communication skills among our female Park mathematics students, and (iii) add to the knowledge of mathematical careers among all the participants of the project. Up to 50 high school students who identify as female and reside in the Kansas City metro will be invited to participate. Five Park female mathematics students will apply and be selected early in the spring to be facilitators during the one-week summer camp. The facilitators will be paid a $600 stipend. These facilitators will work with the project directors to develop engaging topics for the camp. During the one-week summer camp, the high school students will come to campus and work in small groups with the Park students facilitating their learning. The camp will culminate with the participants’ presentations of their studies and a celebration of their achievements. Throughout the week, the participants and facilitators will gain a new appreciation of mathematics and the importance of women in mathematics careers.
  • Project Title: Math RaMP (Mathematics Research and Mentoring Program)
  • Project Director: Naiomi Cameron
  • Project Summary:

    Math RaMP addresses many of the critical issues and challenges facing African American women at the undergraduate level, by preparing and inspiring women of color to enter graduate school to study mathematics and helping them to acquire the necessary training and confidence to pursue associated careers in this field.

    Recruiting and retaining African American women in undergraduate mathematics requires attention to some of the special challenges faced by students — challenges that result from social and economic factors, and the nature of their prior education. Overcoming some of the challenges involves:

    • meeting students’ financial needs
    • building their self-confidence
    • providing students with role models and mentors
    • promoting a sense of belonging in science and mathematics, and
    • providing a challenging - yet supportive - academic environment that expresses high expectations and confidence in the ability of students to achieve

    Moreover, undergraduate research experiences have been shown to increase the retention and persistence of students in the STEM disciplines. This is especially true for underrepresented racial minorities and for women. Hence, Math RaMP seeks to develop the students’ interest in mathematics so that they complete their major and seek opportunities for advanced study or employment in a mathematics-related area.

  • Project Title: GetGirlsMath@Stonehill
  • Project Director: Leyda Almodovar Velazquez
  • Project Summary:GirlsGetMath@Stonehill is a five-day non-residential mathematics program at Stonehill College in Easton, MA for students entering the 10th or 11th grade in the fall of 2021. At GirlsGetMath@Stonehill students will explore the mathematical sciences in an open and encouraging setting. Accomplished faculty will lead hands-on activities, interactive lectures, and daily computer labs on topics such as cryptography, data science, image processing, and mathematical modeling. GirlsGetMath@Stonehill aims to provide an affirming environment that introduces high school students to a variety of career opportunities in which sophisticated mathematical ability plays a key role and to show young adults that the study of mathematics can be exciting, beautiful, and useful. We wish to provide a network of mentors to support the students and have a positive influence on the way they view their mathematical interest and ability.
  • Project Title: Mathsketball and Mathletics 2021
  • Project Director: Kenneth Roblee
  • Project Summary: We would select area middle school girls to the campus of Troy University for a 2-day event in January or February 2021. The theme would be mathematics in sports. In particular, we would study the application and practice of mathematics and statistics in basketball and other sports including softball and/or volleyball.
  • Project Title: Girls Talk Math Summer Enrichment Program
  • Project Director: Konstantina Trivisa
  • Project Summary: Girls Talk Math is an inexpensive two-week, all-day day-camp for high school students held at the University of Maryland - College Park that promotes participation of women in mathematics. This program features three interconnected components: (i) to explore new mathematical concepts, (ii) to learn about the role of women in math and their current contributions to the field, and (iii) to develop verbal and written communication skills. Students in rising-9th through rising-12th grades residing in the Washington DC metropolitan area are invited to apply. Graduate and undergraduate volunteers were assigned to mentor groups of participants on a particular topic in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, scientific computing, or cryptography. Additionally, the high school students research and record a podcast about a famous female mathematician. The goal of this camp is two-fold: to provide an opportunity for young women to realize their potential for a career in math and to foster a sustainable community of female mathematicians in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
  • Project Title: Mathematics Project at Minnesota
  • Project Directors: Paul Carter, Esther Banaian, Sarah Brauner, Harini Chandramouli, McCleary Philbin
  • Project Summary: The Mathematics Project at Minnesota (MPM) is a four-day workshop for undergraduate women at the University of Minnesota. The workshop aims to increase the participation and success of women majoring in mathematics by building community, providing mentorship, and instilling participants with a sense of mathematical empowerment. MPM has run successfully for three years, with a steady increase in the number of participants each year. Events at MPM highlight career opportunities in math (in academia and beyond) and issues facing women in math, including discussions on imposter syndrome and implicit biases. There is also a strong mathematical component: participants work collaboratively on problem sets, attend talks on interesting and accessible topics by post-docs and faculty (for example, topological data analysis), and give a short presentation on a mathematics topic of their choice. MPM is run by female graduate students, with help from mathematics post-docs, faculty, and advanced undergraduates; participants are typically early in their undergraduate careers. Many meaningful connections---between undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, faculty, and professionals---have been sparked at MPM and maintained after the conclusion of the workshop. Students report being more confident in their mathematical abilities, feeling more welcome in the Mathematics Department, and being more likely to participate in undergraduate research as a result of MPM.
  • Project Title: SURE: Speakers & Undergraduate Research Engagement
  • Project Director: Gretchen Matthews
  • Project Summary: SURE: Speakers and Undergraduate Research Engagement, piloted in 2019-2020 through the support of the MAA Tensor Foundation, equips participants with skills and experiences to be more successful in their mathematical pursuits and combats stereotypical views of what success in mathematics looks like and who can achieve it via two main components:
    • a speaker series showcasing prominent female mathematicians, some of whom are from other groups underrepresented in STEM fields, who share their research and stories about the research process, thus humanizing it; and
    • an introductory research course with mini-projects, along with the opportunity for more intense research engagement.
    They are woven together in the SURE experience. By interacting with SURE visitors, students see that mathematical challenges are not indications that they are not suited to the discipline but instead are routine for everyone. SURE encourages a growth mindset as students tackle research alongside faculty, experiencing together the highs and lows of working on problems where the solutions are yet to be uncovered, fostering an environment where together we rebound from setbacks, and emphasizing persistence as a necessary part of development. Doing mathematics is at the center of this proposal as undergraduates engage in small-group projects and learn about research approaches and tools as well as interact with speakers to highlight the career possibilities that continuing in the discipline may bring.

 

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2019

  • Project Title: PROMYS Math Circle Girls (PMCG) Initiative
  • Project Director: Glenn Stevens
  • Project Summary: After a popular first year of activities funded by MAA-Tensor, the PROMYS Math Circle Girls (PMCG) Initiative will continue to provide a series of free, collaborative mathematics activities for Massachusetts high school girls during the 2019-2020 academic year. PMCG builds upon the success of the PROMYS Math Circle (PMC) outreach and mentoring program. PMC was launched in 2016, as a means to develop a pipeline of mathematically talented students from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds to apply to and attend the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS), an intensive six-week summer immersion program at Boston University founded in 1989. Currently, PMC runs nine free math circles – 8 in high-needs public school districts in greater-Boston, and 1 virtual. Alumni of PROMYS for Teachers and graduate students in mathematics mentor students in weekly extracurricular math circles. Recognizing the need to foster proactively the involvement of female students, PMCG will provide supplemental opportunities for girls outside of their co-ed math circles, by 1) introducing girls from across PMC math circles to each other to engage in doing mathematics together, 2) exposing PMC girls to role models and a greater mathematical community outside of their schools, 3) broadening the perspectives of PMC girls beyond their own neighborhoods, and 4) encouraging PMC girls’ continued interest in studying mathematics and other STEM fields throughout high school and beyond.
  • Project Title: GirlsDoMath Summer Camp
  • Project Director: Tracii Friedman
  • Project Summary:The GirlsDoMath Summer Camp is a week-long mathematics enrichment camp for girls entering 8th and 9th grades. The camp begins with hands-on activities that introduce exciting topics in mathematics that the girls are not likely to have seen in their traditional school curriculum. Camp participants choose one of the topics to explore in more depth, resulting in a poster presentation on the final day of the camp. The camp also includes “guest spots” throughout the week in which women working in STEM fields and faculty members from the university will give short inspiring presentations about careers and topics in STEM. The goals of the camp are to provide mathematics enrichment activities to girls early in their education; to introduce girls to careers that require a strong background in mathematics; and to improve girls’ perceptions of women (themselves included) as mathematicians.
  • Project Title: Dixie Tensor Scholar Program
  • Project Director: Bhuvaneswari Sambandham
  • Project Summary: The Dixie Tensor Scholar Program is a year-long mentoring program for female students to increase retention rates among math majors by highlighting the advantages and benefits of studying mathematics through the lens of their future career. Students in the Dixie Tensor Scholars Program will attend monthly talks, have monthly lunch meetings, maintain a portfolio and participate as mentors and facilitators to high school girls during the “Maryam Mirzakhani” Day held during Women’s History Month.
  • Project Title: GVSU-GRCC Math Circle Community for Women
  • Project Director: Lauren Keough
  • Project Summary: The GVSU-GRCC Math Circle Community for Women is a math enrichment and mentoring program for women who are making a transition to college level mathematics. The program will pair academically younger students from Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) and Grand Valley State University (GVSU) with junior and senior math majors at GVSU. At monthly math circles the women will be introduced to topics they would not typically see in their undergraduate, like gerrymandering, and some they may see, like symmetries of a square and non-Euclidean geometries. The program will result in increased collaboration between the mathematics departments at GVSU and GRCC resulting in a smoother transition between the two institutions for all students.
  • Project Title: Jackson State University Girls Engaging in the Mathematical Sciences (GEMS)
  • Project Director: Jana Talley
  • Project Summary: JSU GEMS is a one-week summer program for middle school girls, especially those who enrolled in high needs schools or who are members of groups underrepresented in the mathematical sciences. This program is housed at Jackson State University (JSU), Jackson, MS, a Historically Black College and University located in the state’s capital and within a failing school district. The program offers to participants several rigorous learning experiences and engagement with mathematicians and other professionals in mathematically intensive careers.
  • Project Title: "Lady Leopards of Mathematics" Peer Mentoring Program
  • Project Director: Allison Lewis
  • Project Summary: The Lafayette College Mathematics Department proposes the formation of a peer-mentoring program for our female majors. First year and sophomore students will be mentored by their junior and senior colleagues, while junior and senior students will be matched with mathematics alumnae to explore potential career ideas and discuss obstacles encountered as members of an underrepresented group in STEM. Participants will meet regularly throughout the academic year, interacting in both their small mentoring clusters and among the larger program participant group. The program will conclude in April with a field trip for all program participants to the National Museum of Math (MoMath) in NYC.
  • Project Title: Lesley Math Circle
  • Project Director: Kate Hendrix
  • Project Summary: The Lesley University Math Circle is designed to be a safe and encouraging place to make math fun and help students grow in their confidence. Students will engage in activities that explore a range of mathematical topics, many outside of or extensions to, the school curriculum. In addition to learning about mathematical concepts, we emphasize the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as the skills for successful and engaging group discussion. The path through which we travel to explore mathematical concepts will be open to redirection by the students’ ideas and questions, with a focus on why the math works, not just how the math works.
  • Project Title: Hidden No More: Stories of Triumph, Excellence and Achievement in Math and Computer Science
  • Project Director: Alison Marr
  • Project Summary: Hidden No More: Stories of Triumph, Excellence and Achievement in Math and Computer Science is a lecture series that invites six historically underrepresented minority women PhDs in mathematics and computer science to campus to speak and interact with our students. The speakers spend about 20 minutes talking about their journey to the PhD and about 20 minutes talking about their research. Each speaker also attends a pre-lecture departmental tea, a post-lecture reception, and a post-lecture dinner with three women math majors. This very successful series was first held in 2018 and this second iteration is a chance for us to reach out to nearby universities to grow the number of students that get a chance to interact with these speakers.
  • Project Title: Texas Women in Mathematics Symposium 2019-2020
  • Project Director: Laura Matusevich
  • Project Summary: The next Texas Women in Mathematics Symposium (TWIMS) will take place on February 1-2, 2020, at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The TWIMS series takes place each year at a different institution in Texas. It celebrates the accomplishments of Texas women mathematicians and provides networking and professional development activities that enhance the climate for women in the region. TWIMS 2019-2020 will feature two keynote addresses, one by Dr. Irene Gamba, Professor of Mathematics and W.A. Tex Moncrief, Jr. Chair in Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, the other by Dr. Raegan Higgins, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University. TWIMS activities include a session on Professional Development, breakout sessions, and parallel sessions for contributed talks by conference participants. The Texas A&M Mathematics Department hosts conferences throughout the year, and has dedicated facilities and staff support. Together with its central location in Texas, this makes Texas A&M an ideal venue for TWIMS.
  • Project Title: Mathsketball 2020
  • Project Director: Kenneth Roblee
  • Project Summary: We will continue our 2-day all girl (7th and 8th graders) math event with the theme “Mathsketball,” which combines mathematics and statistics applied to basketball. This would take place on a Saturday in January 2020 to coincide with a Troy University women’s basketball game. Girls will have experiences with how to compute specific percentages and statistics in basketball and how these are used to make decisions. They will also have activities involving creating a schedule for a league and some mathematics involved in this. The students would also attend a Troy University women’s basketball game, and would have a meeting with the staff involved in collecting and using the player and team statistics for each game. This person would describe to them what he/she does in his/her work, and there would be time for questions and answers. The focus is to expose students to the basic skills of data collection, organization, and analysis that are used in sports such as basketball.
  • Project Title: Girls Talk Math Summer Enrichment Program
  • Project Director: Konstantina Trivisa
  • Project Summary: “Girls Talk Math: Summer Enrichment Program,” (GTM) is a free two-week, day camp for high school students at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) that promotes participation of women in mathematics. GTM has three interconnected components: (i) to explore mathematical concepts, (ii) to learn about the role of women in math and their current contributions to the field, and (iii) to develop verbal and written communication skills. Up to 40 individuals who identify as female in the rising-9th through rising-12th grades residing in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area will be accepted based on their interest in math and the program. The students will work in small groups (2-5) on a topic in mathematics outside of their high school curriculum, such as dynamical systems and number theory. The girls will research and record a podcast about a famous female mathematician whose career is related to their camp topic. A current undergraduate or graduate UMD math student will help participants understand the new topic and advise them on their organization and skills for studying math. The camp will culminate with the participants’ technical presentations of their studies and a celebration of their achievements. Their mathematical findings are shared through blog posts on our website and podcasts. Post-camp blog posts and podcasts will allow the campers to reflect on their experience at camp and may motivate them to continue studying math in the future.
  • Project Title: Girls Learning and Exploring Applications of Mathematics
  • Project Director: Scott Gilbert
  • Project Summary: This renewal proposal requests funding to support Girls Learning and Exploring Applications of Mathematics (GLEAM), an academic year enrichment program to support middle school girls interested in mathematics in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area. The GLEAM program is organized through a collaboration of the Mathematics Center for Educational Programs (MathCEP) and teachers in the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and metropolitan area school districts. GLEAM provides an avenue for girls interested in math to learn interesting and fun mathematical topics while fostering a sense of community among like-minded peers. GLEAM will offer Saturday enrichment programming at the university campus for four weekends in the 2018-2019 academic year. We estimate that it will bring seven teachers and approximately 140 students to the university campus four times during the academic year. Each weekend, the teachers will work with GLEAM students on a particular enrichment topic, chosen to be relevant to today’s world and have fun underlying mathematics. In addition, we are adding new activities to this year's proposal that are in line with the AY 2018-2019 teachers' recommendations, such as a STEM-focused tour of the Minneapolis campus and a panel of female undergraduate STEM majors, on two of the enrichment days.
  • Project Title: Girls in Math Club
  • Project Director: Elena Pavelescu
  • Project Summary: The program offers one day of campus activities for middle school girls in Fall 2019, followed by a year long Girls in Math Club at one of the local middle schools.
  • Project Title: Celebrating Women in Math Day and Mentorship Program
  • Project Director: Theresa Jorgensen
  • Project Summary: Celebrating Women in Math Day and Mentorship Program is a proposal for graduate students to mentor early-career undergraduates at UTA in a project that requires them to develop a Women in Math Day for local High School Students. This is an all-inclusive program intended to get younger students excited about mathematics and celebrate the work of historical and present-day female mathematicians.
  • Project Title: SURE: Speakers and Undergraduate Research Engagement
  • Project Director: Gretchen Matthews
  • Project Summary: To encourage female undergraduate students to continue in mathematics, we propose a new academicyear program SURE: Speakers and Undergraduate Research Engagement. The SURE program has two main components: a speaker series which hosts female mathematicians, some of whom are from other groups underrepresented in STEM fields, and semester-long introductory research projects. These two features will give undergraduates a welcoming environment in which to develop mathematically alongside peers, graduate students, and faculty and to discuss career trajectories and mathematical opportunities. Doing mathematics is at the center of this proposal, as undergraduates engage in small-group projects, and the speaker series is meant to highlight the career possibilities that continuing in the discipline may bring. Anecdotally, we have seen that female students in particular tend to have some anxiety about what is required to move onto advanced classes or to do research. They are interested in pursuing undergraduate research but unsure about how to make it happen. SURE projects give students concrete initial experiences; the confidence to apply for REUs, internships, or other research projects; and material to support their applications.

 

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2018

  • Project Title: PROMYS Math Circle Girls (PMCG) Initiative
  • Project Director: Glenn Stevens, Li-Mei Lim
  • Project Summary:The PROMYS Math Circle Girls (PMCG) Initiative builds upon the success of the PROMYS Math Circle (PMC) mentoring program by providing a series of free, collaborative mathematics activities for ambitious high school girls during the 2018-2019 academic year. In late 2016, PMC was launched as a means to develop a pipeline of mathematically talented Massachusetts students from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds to apply to and attend PROMYS, an intensive six-week summer immersion program at Boston University. Given an overwhelming response, PROMYS formed ten free math circles in high-needs school districts in the greater-Boston area. PROMYS for Teachers alumni and graduate students in mathematics mentor students in challenging weekly extracurricular math circles. Recognizing the need to foster proactively the involvement of female students, PMCG will provide supplemental opportunities for girls outside of their co-ed math circles, by 1) introducing girls from across PMC math circles to each other to engage in doing math together, 2) exposing PMC girls to a greater mathematical community outside their schools, 3) broadening the perspectives of PMC girls beyond their own neighborhoods, and 4) encouraging PMC girls’ continued interest in studying mathematics and other STEM fields throughout high school and beyond.
  • Project Title: GirlsDoMath Summer Camp
  • Project Director: Tracii Friedman
  • Project Summary:The GirlsDoMath Summer Camp will be a week-long mathematics enrichment camp for girls entering 8th through 10th grades. The camp will begin with hands-on activities that introduce exciting topics in mathematics that the girls are not likely to have seen in their traditional school curriculum. Camp participants will choose one of the topics to explore in more depth, resulting in a presentation on the final day of the camp. The camp will also include “guest spots” throughout the week in which women working in STEM fields and faculty members from the university will give short inspiring presentations about careers and topics in STEM. The goals of the camp are to provide mathematics enrichment activities to girls early in their education; to introduce girls to careers that require a strong background in mathematics; and to improve girls’ perceptions of women (themselves included) as mathematicians.
  • Project Title: I C Women in Math
  • Project Director: Vira Babenko
  • Project Summary:The main goal of this project is to build a supportive community of female undergraduate students at Ithaca College, raise awareness of female mathematicians and their importance in the development of mathematics, and provide the opportunity for high school female students to learn about careers in mathematics and a broad range of applications of mathematics.
  • Project Title: Jackson State University Girls Engaging in the Mathematical Sciences (GEMS)
  • Project Director: Jana Talley
  • Project Summary:The Jackson State University Girls Engaging in the Mathematical Sciences (JSU GEMS) Program is a one week summer program for middle school girls, especially those who are enrolled in high needs schools or who are members of groups underrepresented in the mathematical sciences. JSU GEMS will be housed at Jackson State University (JSU), Jackson, MS, a Historically Black College and University located in the state’s capital and an urban school district. The project objectives are to: (a) engage middle school girls in rigorous mathematics learning experiences, (b) introduce middle school girls to the process of applying to college (c) introduce middle school girls to and expand their awareness of mathematically-intensive careers, and (d) engage middle school girls in the use of computer programming software that will (i.) enhance their understanding of computational data, (ii.) reinforce their understanding of grade level appropriate mathematical procedures, and (iii.) allow them to visualize mathematics for conceptual understanding. The summer program offers rigorous learning experiences and engagement with mathematicians and other professionals in mathematically intensive careers. Program activities also include daily speakers from mathematically intensive careers and college-readiness activities.
  • Project Title: Breaking Barriers: Increasing Accessibility of Graduate School for Female Mathematics Students
  • Project Director: Derek Thompson
  • Project Summary: The purpose of Breaking Barriers is increasing accessibility of graduate school for female mathematics students by bringing 10 early career female mathematicians to campus across the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years. The intent is for our relatively large population of female mathematics majors to use these opportunities to envision themselves as professors and graduate students. Taylor University is located in a rural community in Indiana, with a diverse student body and a nearly even split of male and female mathematics majors, however, all of the full-time mathematics faculty are white males. In the past five years, only one of our female graduates has attended a PhD program, compared to 10 male graduates.
  • Project Title: Women Doing Math (WDM)
  • Project Director: Daniela Ferrero
  • Project Summary: WDM is a year-long program aimed at female students but influencing the entire mathematical community at Texas State University (TxSt). The goal of this program is to increase the number of women in the mathematical workforce by creating awareness of career opportunities in mathematics and encouraging women to take advantage of them. Each month, this program focuses on a high-profile female mathematician and her field of research. At the end of the month the mathematician visits TxSt to give a seminar, and share a mentoring meal with students. In preparation for the seminar, there are activities to increase the impact of the visitor in the students’ careers, and to promote networking among female students through doing mathematics. The activities during each month involve reading selected material, solving problems, contests and prizes. The program has a website to encourage participation and to broaden its impact. A newsletter with announcements and opportunities for women in math is distributed through an email list to which anyone can subscribe. The WDM program has been successfully running its second year at TxSt: leading female mathematicians have enthusiastically accepted invitations to showcase their work and careers, faculty have attended and promoted the seminars, and students have responded with remarkable excitement and appreciation. Through their own initiative, students created a university club to support the program and promote its mission.
  • Project Title: Mathsketball 2019
  • Project Director: Kenneth Roblee
  • Project Summary:We propose a one-day all girl (7th and 8th graders) math event with the theme “Mathsketball,” which combines mathematics and statistics applied to basketball. This would take place on a Saturday in January 2019 to coincide with a Troy University women’s basketball game (as the 2018-19 schedule has not yet been published, we cannot yet specify a date). Girls will have experiences with how to compute specific percentages and statistics in basketball and how these are used to make decisions. They will also have activities involving creating a schedule for a league and some mathematics involved in this. The students would also attend a Troy University women’s basketball game, and would have a meeting with the staff involved in collecting the game statistics. This person would describe to them what he/she does in his/her work, and there would be time for questions and answers. The focus is to expose students to the basic skills of data collection, organization, and analysis that are used in sports such as basketball; moreover, they would learn introductory discrete mathematics concepts of graphs to model scheduling problems.
  • Project Title: Girls Learning and Exploring Applications of Mathematics
  • Project Director: Kaitlin Hill
  • Project Summary:This proposal requests funding to support Girls Learning and Exploring Applications of Mathematics (GLEAM), an academicyear enrichment program to support middle school girls interested in mathematics in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area. The proposed GLEAM program will be organized through a collaboration of the Mathematics Center for Educational Programs (MathCEP) and teachers in the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and metropolitan area school districts. GLEAM will provide an avenue for girls interested in math to learn interesting and fun mathematical topics while fostering a sense of community among like-minded peers. After an initial kick-off event at the Minneapolis Math and Science Fun Fair, GLEAM will offer Saturday enrichment programming at the university campus for three weekends in the 2018-2019 academic year, for a total of four events. It will bring seven teachers and approximately 140 students to the university campus three times during the academic year. Each weekend, the teachers will work with GLEAM students on a particular enrichment topic, chosen to be relevant to today’s world and have fun underlying mathematics. The objectives of the proposed program will be to (a) introduce middle schoolaged girls to fun mathematical topics; (b) foster a sense of community among girls interested in mathematics; (c) inspire students to continue pursuing mathematics; and (d) help students get a sense of what mathematicians do, by interacting with mathematics faculty
  • Project Title: All Girls/All Math Summer Camp
  • Project Director: Mikil Foss
  • Project Summary: All Girls/All Math (AGAM) is composed of two week-long summer camps each for 30 mathematically talented high school girls, held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The participants are exposed to challenging, sophisticated and interesting mathematics in the context of a cryptography course that culminates in the development and implementation of the RSA cryptosystem. The campers also participate in mini-courses focusing on other topics ranging from aerodynamics to graph theory. Activities are also planned to help the girls develop new life-long relationships with each other and to meet female mathematicians at various stages of their education and careers.
  • Project Title: University of New Haven's Summer Math Academy for Girls
  • Project Director: Yevgeniya Rivers
  • Project Summary: The University of New Haven All Girls Math Academy is a one-week summer enrichment program in Mathematics and Computer Science for girls entering grades 7-10, which will commence for the 4th time in June 2018 (http://www.newhaven.edu/admissions/pre-college/summer-youth/all-girls-ma...). The camp curricula is designed to provide hands-on experience for the campers in mathematics to which they would have had little or no prior exposure, thus challenging any disparities that would exist in their prior knowledge. The main objectives are to improve recruitment and retention of girls in STEM education and careers by increasing awareness of career options, demonstrating that mathematics can be fun and challenging without being intimidating, strengthening problem solving skills, improving attitudes, self-image in mathematical literacy and also developing written and verbal communication skills. Candidates will be exposed to Math topics including Coding and Cryptography and Graph Theory that are not ordinarily introduced in the high school math classroom. These topics will set up an introductory pathway towards research in Mathematics. Topics in Geometry and Scratch programming are included with the aim of increasing their digital literacy and mathematical fluency. We also seek to provide an opportunity for students from low-income backgrounds.
  • Project Title: Girls Talk Math: Engaging Girls in Mathematics Through Mentorship and Mass Media
  • Project Director: Hans Christianson
  • Project Summary: “Girls Talk Math: Engaging Girls in Mathematics Through Mentorship and Mass Media” will involve a group of up to 40 highschool students who identify as female in a two-week-long summer day camp in which they will complete math problem sets, research the life of a female mathematician and produce a podcast series and an accompanying blog describing their work. Female mathematicians from local universities and industry will speak on their experiences and research to connect participants to modern mathematics. Campers will design and record a podcast describing the mathematician whose life they researched and will write a blog post about the math problems they solve throughout camp. Each podcast will be produced and recorded during the camp and will be released on the blog and through free platforms available online. By building a community of like-minded individuals the program will create support for girls interested in entering this challenging area. The goal of our program is to increase the girls’ knowledge and build their confidence by having their voices heard, creating relationships with peers and mentors, and putting the students in contact with resources helpful to continue exploring the potential of careers in mathematics.
  • Project Title: Girls in Math Club
  • Project Director: Elena Pavelescu
  • Project Summary:The Girls in Math Club offers one day of campus activities and valuable interactions for middle school girls in Fall 2018, followed by a year long Girls in Math Club at one of the local middle schools.
  • Project Title: Women in Mathematics Industry Internships Network (WoMI2N) Program
  • Project Director: Jessica Deshler
  • Project Summary: The goals of this project are to prepare graduate students to be successful in industry careers and provide ways to help faculty support students in this area. The primary mechanisms for this will be through (1) placement in internship positions with local industry and government agencies, as well as in research laboratories across campus, (2) guidance for faculty to be able to mentor students for industry careers and (3) building a network of industry contacts and projects for students to explore. Tensor funding will specifically support placing female graduate students into internships (objective 1) and additional university (funding mechanisms and in-kind support) and federal funding will be sought to support the other objectives of the program, including the networking events for female graduate students and potential industry partners.

 

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