UNION OF BULGARIAN MATHEMATICIANS
INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS AND INFORMATICS, BULGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

NATIONAL MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM

The next meeting of the National Mathematics Colloquium will be held on May 26, 2017 at 16:00 in the Conference Room of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Acad. G. Bonchev Street, Block 8

Dr. Mark Saul, Executive Director of the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival, will deliver a lecture on:

The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival - an Alternative to Competition in Mathematics

Everybody is invited.

Head of the Colloquium: Acad. P. Popivanov

Summary. There is a unity to mathematics.  Solutions to some of the simplest problems one might think of betray the structure of the whole discipline, and can lead to the posing of more problems that further deepen inquiry.  I will talk about several places in the school curriculum where we can introduce advanced topics and applications of the mathematics we teach.

Mark Saul is the Executive Director of the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival. He spent 35 years in and around New York, teaching mathematics in classrooms from grades 3 through 12. More recently, he directs the Center for Mathematical Talent at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

He has been a senior scholar for the John Templeton Foundation, guiding their portfolio in gifted education. Prior to that he was a program director for the National Science Foundation, where his portfolio included programs in mathematics curriculum, in teacher professional development, and the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. He is a 1984 recipient of that award, the nation’s highest honor for work in the classroom.

Mark directed the Research Science Institute at MIT for twelve years. Internationally, he co- directed the AAAS Olympiad program, which brings US students from minority backgrounds to the Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad and similar contests in Latin America. He initiated a student exchange program between Russian and American students, as well as an “Intel/Westinghouse” style competition for students of mathematics in China. He has given talks and led workshops in more than 20 countries, including Russia, Bulgaria, China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and India