The Canadian Mathematical Society is pleased to announce that its third team to compete in the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) has finished a virtual EGMO this April which was originally scheduled to take place in Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands. This year’s competition presented some challenges while working in a virtual environment, but the team persevered and enjoyed the competition. The Canadian team finished strongly with one Silver Medal, one Bronze Medal and one Honourable Mention. Unfortunately, there wasn’t as much opportunity this year to network with team members from other countries, but both the virtual opening and closing ceremonies gave teams an opportunity to share their pride in their countries and in mathematics. Leaders and deputy leaders shared their students’ work on a virtual forum and two of the solutions provided by our team members received special attention, because of their originality and beauty.
The EGMO competition started in 2012 when it was first written in Cambridge, UK and has since grown to include more than 50 countries. Participation in the EGMO is by invitation only. Each student competes individually to solve six questions, in a competition lasting two days, four and a half hours each day. The Girls Math Team Canada was selected largely based on the results of the 2019 Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) written in November, as well as a Team Selection Test that was sent to the top 15 female contestants from the 2019 COMC.
The 2020 team was led by CMS Mathematical Competitions Chair, Professor Dorette Pronk (Dalhousie University) and Deputy Leader Diana Castaneda Santos (University of Waterloo). Dorette has also served as Leader for the 2018 EGMO Math Team Canada in Florence, Italy and the 2019 EGMO Math Team Canada in Kiev, Ukraine.
The Canadian EGMO Team was trained at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, in Toronto from February 6-10. In addition to Professor Dorette Pronk and Diana Castaneda Santos, Jacob Tsimerman, Mike Pawliuk, Dani Spivak and Elnaz Hessami Pilehrood contributed to the training of the team.
Canada’s presence at the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad was made possible in large part due to the financial support of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics for which the Society is very grateful. The Society would also like to acknowledge the organizers of the Olympiad Winter Training Camp at York and The Fields Institute for hosting the Girls’ training camp. The CMS is also thankful for the support of RBC Foundation, the Actuarial Foundation of Canada, NSERC Young Innovators and PromoScience grants, Samuel Beatty Fund, and many individual donations. This support enabled the Society to allow the Canadian team to participate in this important event and celebrate the achievement of girls in STEM.
Canada’s Team consisted of:
- Anna Krokhine, Bronze Medalist – University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, ON
- Siyu (Elaine) Liu, Honourable Mention – Appleby College, Oakville, ON (our Samuel Beatty recipient)
- Jennifer Wang, Silver Medalist – University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, ON
- Amelia Zhou – Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute, Toronto, ON