On Saturday, May 13th, Carnegie Mellon mathematics Professor Po-Shen Loh will give a talk at Lake Highland Preparatory, open to any interested students.
Professor Loh is head coach of the International Mathematics Math Olympiad, and is the man who made history by coaching the U.S. team to win consecutive gold medals in 2015 and 2016. Before that, the last time the USA made first place was in 1994.
The Hertz Foundation, in an article describing Professor Loh’s work, put it well: “When it comes to mathematics, Hertz Fellow and Carnegie Mellon University professor Po-Shen Loh isn’t just a superstar in his own right, he’s also a self-proclaimed “math evangelist” on a mission to share his message throughout the world.”
Orlando Math Circle (OMC) came in contact with Professor Loh through a novel mathematical resource website, Expii, that he has pioneered. Expii is a free educational website that focuses on making math fun for the masses. It crowdsources math problems and solutions and gives users the ability to explore math through real-world and pop-culture problems, like which artists will win the most music awards, or how self-driving cars can improve travel times.
ValueWalk, in an article ambitiously entitled “How a Math Algorithm Could Educate the Whole World — for Free” describes Expii as a program “that aims to turn every smartphone into a tutor.” They quote Loh as explaining “The idea is that this should cure boredom at the high end and also cure confusion at the struggling end.” You can’t get much better than that for any educational resource!
After Orlando Math Circle posted a link pointing students to Expii, Professor Loh contacted the OMC and offered to give a free talk to our community of students.
While Professor Loh’s aspirations for Expii are global, they are the same as what OMC is aspiring to achieve on a local level. As he put it: “trying to popularize mathematics as not just a thing that you do in school, but something you do to really understand the world better”.
Professor Loh will be in Orlando for this year’s National Math Counts Competition. This is a rare opportunity to have such a distinguished mathematician talk to students. We would like to spread the word about this event so that interested students can take advantage of this opportunity. There is limited seating, so please RSVP and get a free ticket at Eventbrite.
