Sonya Kovalevsky Day

We are excited to announce Temple University's second Sonia Kovalevsky Day to be held Saturday, April 27, 2013. This will be a day full of mathematics enrichment activities including projects, workshops, and a competition. Learn more about the mathematician Sonia Kovalevsky here.

Saturday, April 27th 2013, 9am -- 3pm

Schedule

Directions

The day's activities will be held in room 200A of the Howard Gittis Student Center on Temple's Main Campus.

To use Google or any other service to find directions to Temple, please use the following address:

Howard Gittis Student Center
1755 North 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Please plan to arrive between 8:45am and 9am and to depart at 3pm. To enter the Howard Gettis Student Center, you should use the south entrance located on 13th Street, which is at building 50B on this campus map.
If you want to drop your child off, there will be student volunteers outside (wearing t-shirts with our SK Day logo) who can escort your children up to the meeting room. If you would like to come up with your child, you will need to park and then walk to the Student Center. You can try to find street parking or use one of the pay lots on campus.

Information for Participants

What to bring:

• We will provide a folder with some paper. You should bring a pencil and possibly a notebook. A calculator is not necessary, but you are free to bring one.
• Lunch will be provided, but you may want to bring bottled water to have throughout the day.

Please plan to arrive between 8:45am and 9am and to depart at 3pm. Our activities will all take place in the Howard Gittis Student Center. You should use the south entrance located on 13th Street, which is at building 50B on this campus map. For more information see the directions tab above.
If you want to drop your child off, there will be student volunteers outside (wearing t-shirts with our SK Day logo) who can escort your children up to the meeting room. If you would like to come up with your child, you will need to park and then walk to the Student Center. You can try to find street parking or use one of the pay lots on campus.

Organizers

Maria Lorenz is co-organizing the Sonia Kovalevsky Day at Temple for the second year in a row.  She received her PhD in Mathematics from the University of Southern California in 1991 under the direction of Susan Montgomery. Since graduation Lorenz has held teaching positions at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Pittsburgh, and Ursinus College.  She has been a full time faculty member (currently Associate Professor, Teaching/Instructional) at Temple University since 2001 where she has been involved in many aspects of the undergraduate mathematics program. In particular, she has worked to organize special events for undergraduates including speakers from inside and outside Temple University and various media presentations involving mathematics.  Maria is a member of the Provosts Teaching Academy at Temple University, meaning she completed, and now teaches to graduate students, a course on best teaching practices. Maria was also the recipient of the Steven Petchon Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching Math at Temple University in 2007.  Together with Irina Mitrea, Lorenz has also run the Temple University Math Circle for the past year and a half, and was as assistant director for the Girls and Mathematics Summer Program at Temple in 2012.  

Irina Mitrea has created, organized, and run a number of mathematical outreach activities involving more than 2000 students (graduate, undergraduate, middle school and high school), a significant portion of which were specifically designed to benefit women in mathematics. These activities include MathCounts training, American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) training, the Girls and Mathematics Summer Programs, Sonia Kovalevsky Mathematics Days activities, outreach activities at the Expo of the US Science and Engineering Festival. At the national level, Irina has been an active participant and mentor in programs with a long tradition in supporting the interest of undergraduate women in graduate studies in mathematics such as the G. Washington University Summer Program for Women in Mathematics and the Women and Mathematics Program of the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University. Since 2007 she also actively engaged in the mentorship efforts of Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) as mentor, member of the AWM Mentoring Committee, and since 2010 as a member of the Executive Committee of AWM.

Jessie Hamm is a fourth year graduate student in mathematics at Temple University. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Berry College in 2006 with a BS in Mathematics. She minored in Secondary Education, receiving her 7-12 teaching certification, along with ESOL endorsement. Jessie then went on to receive a Master’s Degree in Mathematics from Wake Forest University in 2008. In 2009, Jessie taught high school mathematics at Griffin High School in Griffin, Georgia. She entered the PhD program at Temple University in 2010 and is hoping to finish in 2014. While attending Temple, Jessie has taught and assisted with several undergraduate courses and was an instructor for the Girls and Math program this past July.

Instructors

Quinn Brady is in her fourth year as Temple's undergraduate. She will be graduating in May with a Mathematics with Teaching degree and a Mathematics Secondary Education Teaching Certificate through the TUteach program. She volunteers at the Lenfest Center in North Philadelphia, as a Graduation Coach, on the weekends tutoring 4th grade math. She is currently doing her student teaching at Philadelphia's High School for Creative and Performing Arts teaching two 9th grade Algebra I classes.

Beth Frankel is in her junior year studying Secondary Education/Mathematics at the College of New Jersey. Beth graduated from Freehold Township High School in 2010 and graduated Brookdale Community College in the spring of 2012, receiving an Associates of Science in Mathematics. Because of her great love for children, learning and math, Beth is studying to become a middle school math teacher. In the 2011-2012 school year, Beth worked as a student assistant in the math lab at Brookdale, assisting her fellow classmates with a broad spectrum of levels of math. Beth also has some experience working as a private tutor for high school students.

Beca Lufi recently graduated from Temple University with a MA in mathematics. She graduated from Tennessee Technological University in 2006 with a BS in mathematics. Beca continued her studies at Tennessee Tech and received an MS on 2007, and taught for the department the following school year. In 2008, she worked as an actuary for a retirement consulting firm before returning to graduate school in 2009. Beca has taught hundreds of college students during her time at Tennessee Tech and Temple, and continues to teach part-time at Immaculata University and Valley Forge Christian College.

Kathryn Lund is a first year graduate student at Temple University. She graduated from Temple with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and plans to receive her PhD here so that she may teach and research in the future. Mathematics runs in her blood, as her mother is a high school math teacher who has inspired her much of her life. She was an instructor at the Sonia Kovalevsky Mathematics Day here at Temple last May. She enjoys running, reading, and music-making in her spare time.

Sarah Munson is currently an undergraduate student studying mathematics at Temple University. She recently graduated from Montgomery County Community College with her associates in mathematics. She worked as a teacher's assistant when she was at Montgomery County Community College. She has tutored many different levels of mathematics to all different levels of students. Mathematics never truly came easily to Sarah, but she loves the challenge and art to mathematics. Her dream is to combine environmental studies/science and mathematics to help understand environmental issues locally and globally.

Mary Walizer is a fifth year undergraduate in mathematics at Temple University. She entered Temple University as an engineering major and quickly changed her major to mathematics because she realized her real passion is math and teaching it to others. She is part of the TUteach program and hopes to graduate with a BS in mathematics and a 7-12 teaching certificate in May of 2013. After graduation she hopes to begin teaching middle or high school. She has worked as a tutor for mathematics for two semesters in the RCC at Templ University. She was an instructor for the Sonia Kovalevsky Day at Temple University in May of 2012 and also for the Girls and Math Program at Temple this past July.

Acknowledgements

Funding and support for this event is provided by the Association for Women in Mathematics, the National Science Foundation, Mathematical Association of America, Temple University Mathematics Department, and  and the National Defense Education Program and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division.