Posted Friday 12 December 2008

The Australian Mathematics Trust has announced that three mathematics educators will receive BH Neumann Awards in 2009. These awards are given for service to the enrichment of mathematics learning in Australia.

This year sees the award to a husband and wife for complementary roles in enrichment activities in Western Australia and nationally. This is the second time this has happened, the first being the awards to George and Esther Szekeres in 1993.

The awardees are:

Katrina Sims, Gold Creek School Canberra. Born and Educated in New Zealand, Katrina first worked in a bank and accountancy firm before moving to Australia and graduating with Diploma of Teaching as a mature age student at the Canberra College of Eucation (now University of Canberra).

She developed a special interest in science and mathematics, and Gifted Education and went on to complete a Bachelor in Education, specialising in Gifted Education, completing part of the degree at the Catholic University in Canberra. She later graduated as a Masters in Gifted Education at Charles Sturt University and established aGifted and Talented Program at a Canberra Primary School.

Katrina won a National Teaching Award in 1999 and joined the Problems Committee of the Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians, specialising in the problems for the younger age groups.

She has involved students in codes and cyphers and been at the forefront of using computers in the classroom. Her students won a national webpage competition and became national finalists in the HP problem solving competition in 1998.

Katrina also taught herself animation skills and completed a Diploma in Multimedia. She has also established chess clubs and taught a robotics program, winning awards. She is now teaching in a Middle School running special programs for students up to Year 10.

Elena works for the Western Australian Department of Education.

Elena and husband Lucho (see below) were born and educated in Bulgaria, where they were already active in running enrichment and Olympiad programs before moving to Australia. Elena had in fact been the Deputy Leader of the strong Bulgarian IMO team, including the team which participated in the IMO in Canberra in 1988.

For 7 years (1995 and 2000 to 2005) Elena was the WA Director of AMOC.

From 1998 to 2000, Elena designed and conducted Mathematics Enrichment programs with mathematically able students in Years 5, 6 and 7.

Elena initiated and drove the development of the annual Western Australian Junior Mathematics Olympiad, now in its tenth year.

The UWA Academy for Young Mathematicians is the realisation of the vision of Elena and Lucho Stoyanov and began in 1995. The Academy is an enrichment programme in Mathematics organised by the School of Mathematics and Statistics of The University of Western Australia for high school students who are currently in Years 10 and 11. Advanced Year 9 students, for example those who have completed the Noether or Polya Enrichment Series of the Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians, are also encouraged to participate. The aim is to broaden and deepen their mathematical knowledge, to involve them in problem solving and to extend the range of their mathematical skills. The Academy runs on a regular basis during the school terms. Further discussion of this continues under Lucho's citation.

Over many years Lucho and Elena ran the WA Mathematics Training Seminars, a fortnightly intensive training session for a group of 10-15 high school students. These were enrichment classes training the elite students taking part in the IMO training - they would often be graduates of the Academy classes and/or other enrichment classes around Perth.

Lucho is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Western Australia. He was born and educated in Bulgaria, where he played a key role in training the strong national team, before moving to Australia.

Lucho has been instrumental over many years in organising and building up the Academy (introduced in the citation above to Elena), and is its director.

The Academy is the single most important outreach initiative to high school mathematics students that the UWA School of Mathematics and Statistics has undertaken since the demise of the WA Mathematics Summer School which ran in the time of Professor Larry Blakers (also a BH Neumann Award winner). Lucho is its champion. As well as his own contributions, he harnesses the efforts of others to make this wonderful initiative a success.

Lucho's role in the WA Mathematics Training Seminars is referred to in Elena's citation. In particular, Lucho was involved in the WA training programme for the last WA IMO participant Peter McNamara, being his mentor during the years when he got his two gold medals.

In addition, Lucho has been on the Problems Committee for the Western Australian Junior Mathematics Olympiad (also referred to above in relation to Elena) each year since its inception, and for many years played a key role in the detailed organisation.

Lucho was also a member the Senior Problems Committee of AMOC from 2001 – 2005