The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival (JRMF) is an educational organization that sponsors locally organized mathematics festivals and online webinars targeting K–12 students. The events are designed to introduce students to mathematics in a collaborative and non-competitive forum.
[Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival]
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute[About Us]
jrmf.org
History
In the 1970s, Saint Mary's College of California
Saint Mary's College of California is a Private college, private Catholic college in Moraga, California, United States. Established in 1863, it is administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college offers undergraduate and graduate programs w ...
produced a mathematics contest that was popular with secondary schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
.[Saint Mary's College Mathematics Contest Problems For Junior and Senior High School]
/ref> In 2005, Nancy Blachman attended an education forum sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) and remembered how the Saint Mary's contest had inspired her as a student.[Saint Mary's Math Contest: High School Division]
: by Nancy Blachman & Nick Baxter Unfortunately, the contest no longer existed. Seeking to possibly resurrect the contest, Blachman and MSRI development director Jim Sotiros reached out to colleagues in the educational community. One response was from local high school math teacher Joshua Zucker, who also remembered the contest and even had saved a book of problems from it.[ Sotiros suggested that Blachman and her husband David desJardins fund MSRI in order to hire Zucker to recreate a program in the style of the Saint Mary's Math Contest. Blachman and Zucker became co-founders and organized their first event in 2007.][ They called it a festival rather than a contest because they wanted to emphasize collaboration, creativity and fun rather than competition.][ They named the festival after Julia Robinson, a mathematician renowned for her contributions to decision problems. In fact, her work on Hilbert's 10th problem played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution.][
] Blachman felt that such a woman would provide a role model for young girls and would show that one need not be male to be a great mathematician.[Getting Kids Excited About Mathematics, One Festival at a Time]
By Colm Mulcahy
Colm Mulcahy (born September 1958) is an Irish mathematician, academic, columnist, book author, public outreach speaker, amateur magician and Professor Emeritus at Spelman College. In addition to algebra, number theory, and geometry, his interes ...
, Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...
Blog, December 6, 2017
When they sent out invitations to local schools, the response was so overwhelming that, in order to have enough space, they prevailed upon Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
in nearby Mountain View to host the first festival.[The 2007 Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival at Google was the founding of this event for middle school and high school students.]
video A second festival was hosted in 2008 by Pixar Animation Studios
Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney S ...
in Emeryville. Enthusiasm and interest have spurred strong growth, and since then, there have been festivals at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
(and its greater community); Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
; and University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, and throughout the United States, as well as in Europe and Asia.The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival in Hong Kong
March 24, 2018
As of December 2019, JRMF will have hosted nearly 500 events in 25 states, the District of Columbia, one territory (Puerto Rico), and 15 foreign countries. In 2020, they hosted over 120 Festivals—an increase of more than 50% over 2018. The services JRMF offer continue to be free of charge. The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival has been invited to host festivals and tables at events such as the Joint Mathematics Meeting and MAA Mathfest. In December 2019, they celebrated Julia Robinson's 100th birthday with a festival in her hometown.
Programming
The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival has hosted festivals in over 15 countries and 25 states and territories.
COVID-19 Response
In order to help families cope with COVID-19, the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival, under the leadership of Hector Rosario, launched the JRMF Webinar Series on March 26, 2020. In this weekly series, they explore an activity that they use at their festivals. In order to serve the national and international communities, they host three sessions of the same seminar every Thursday, from 7 AM to 7 PM EDT, in three languages - English, Spanish and Hebrew. Participants from the US, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East come to attend. Many community members and volunteers have joined the JRMF team as facilitators to lead breakout rooms in order to provide closer attention to each participant for learning and brainstorming.
Support
Since its founding, JRMF has had the support of many people and organizations, including dedicated mentors and volunteers, the founding host MSRI, and the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM), which has been a fiscal sponsor since 2013. JRMF has also frequently partnered with various educational, corporate, and mathematical organizations including The National Association of Math Circles, The National Museum of Mathematics, ThinkFun, and Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G). Among The "Friends of JRMF" are David Eisenbud
David Eisenbud (born 8 April 1947 in New York City) is an American mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley and former director of the then Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), now k ...
, Gary Antonick, Peter Norvig
Peter Norvig (born 14 December 1956) is an American computer scientist and Distinguished Education Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. He previously served as a director of research and search quality at Google. Norvig is th ...
, Vi Hart, and Megan Smith.[Sponsors and Partners]
JRMF.org
References
External links
* {{Official website, http://jrmf.org/
About the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival
video
Mathematics organizations
Mathematics conferences
Mathematics competitions
Festival organizations in North America
Organizations established in 2007
2007 establishments in California
Mathematics education organizations in the United States