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World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions (WFNMC) announces winners of Paul Erdös Award for 2008.

Three mathematics educators from different parts of the world have been announced as winners of the prestigious Paul Erdös Award for 2008. These are expected to be announced at the ICME-11 Conference to be held in Monterrey, Mexico, from 06 to 13 July.

This Award of WFNMC, given for sustained and distinguished contribution to the enrichment of mathematics education, is strictly limited to three winners every two years and results from extensive refereeing and assessment of many nominated candidates.

The three winners for 2008, together with brief citations, are:

Hans-Dietrich (Dieter) Gronau, Germany

Dieter (second from right) is pictured with colleagues at Rostock in 2004. At right is former Erdös Award winner Wolfgang Engel. At left is Wolfgang's son Konrad, and second from left Roger Labahn, both also members of Rostock University Mathematics Faculty.

Citation

Dieter participated in the IMO in Bucharest in 1969, where he won a Bronze Medal. He holds a PhD at Rostock University. From 1971 to 1985 he was an examiner and coordinator in the East German Olympiad training program. From 1969 to 1986 he was a trainer, examiner and personal teacher of students in the club of young mathematicians in the Neubrandenburg district. He was Deputy Leader and then Leader of the East German IMO team for several years until 1990.

After Unification he became the Chairman of the united Mathematical Olympiad Organisation for all of Germany and he has been chief trainer, deputy leader and team leader until the present time. Since 1991 he has also been a member of the organisation of the Bundeswettbewerbes Mathematik, which was the organisation with West German origin. Essentially he has overseen the unification of the two German competition organisations into the cohesive national framework Germany has today.

Since 2005 Dieter has also been leading the North German teams in the Baltic Way competition.

Bruce Henry, Australia

Citation

Bruce Henry is now retired from an academic post at Deakin University in Melbourne, where over many years he trained many of the teachers now serving in his state of Victoria. He holds a BSc and DipEd at the University of Melbourne and MScEd from the University of Western Australia.

His key role and exceptional achievement was in founding in 1991 the Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians, an enrichment program supported by the Australian Government and attracting about 23,000 students annually. The program has three stages. The first stage is a problem solving event in which students between Years 5 and 10 have three weeks to solve a number of problems, which develop from elementary ideas and can develop to quite advanced ideas in steps.

The second stage, known as the Enrichment stage, comprises formal coursework extending students' skills and knowledge beyond classroom experience, particularly exploring mathematical concepts such as proof, and also extending knowledge in traditional mathematics disciplines and extending problem solving expertise. This stage attracts entries from other countries in Australia's region. The third and final stage is a national Olympiad for students up to Year 10. Bruce remained as Director of this program until recently.

Bruce has also made major and significant contributions to mathematics learning for over 30 years in his state of Victoria both with curriculum input and as an official examiner, including Chief Examiner. He has also written more than 40 books for teachers and students. He is also a prolific problem composer and lectures on exploratory mathematics related to problem solving.

Leou Shian, Taiwan

Leou (right) pictured in his home town of Kaohsiung in 2006 with former Erdös Award winner Wen-Hsien Sun.

Citation

Professor Leou was a long time professor of Mathematics at the National Kaohsiung Normal University, where he also served as Vice President and Dean of the College of Science. He holds a PhD from Indiana University.

In 1999 he founded the Invitational World Youth Mathematics Intercity Competition, which attracts entries from all around the world but is particularly strong in southern and eastern Asia. This event is for students up to year 9, and has been hosted by cities in Taiwan, Philippines, India and China. He gave a plenary lecture on this event at WFNMC-3 in Zhong Shan, China, 1998.

In 1998 Professor Leou founded the Regional Internet Mathematics Competition in Taiwan to arouse the interest in mathematics of students from primary schools to senior secondary schools in Taiwan and to appreciate the links between mathematics and everyday life. This contest now attracts 8000 students annually.

Since 1993 Professor Leou has served as a member of the Taiwan Mathematical Olympiad Committee and has been actively involved in training students to represent Taiwan in the IMO and APMO and served as leader and deputy leader of Taiwan teams on a number of occasions.

Professor Leou has also enabled Taiwan students to enter other international competitions and has organised winter camps to provide popularisation and enrichment activities in mathematics for students in Kaohsiung and Pingtung Counties and assisting primary schools in southern Taiwan to prepare teams for participation in the annual international mathematics competition in Hong Kong for primary students.