UCLA Olga Radko Endowed Math Circle

Los Angeles Math Circle History

Congratulations to our 2019 graduating seniors!

(Left to Right): Emily Wesel, Ian Joffe, Pranav Kalyan, and Emma Wong

IAN JOFFE

Ian will be attending Berkeley Engineering. He has been in Math Circle for 4 years. 

Ian scored a perfect score on his Math SAT, a 5 on his AP Calculus BC exam, and is a National Merit Scholarship finalist. He is also a TA in his school's Mathematics department and has been self-employed as a math tutor for five years.  Ian has been awarded the highest level (platinum status) in American Mensa’s Honor Society.

EMILY WESEL

(Left to right) Rowan Wang and Olga Radko

Emily is going to Stanford University to major in Computer Science. She has been a Math Circle participant for the last six years. 

“Thank you for making Math Circle happen! It has truly helped me mature as a math student.”  

EMMA WONG

Emma is heading to  MIT  as an undeclared major. She has been a Math Circle participant for seven years.

ROWAN WANG

Rowan will be attending UCLA with a major in Psychobiology or Neuroscience. She has attended Math Circles for about 7 years. She is also a previous winner of the Raytheon MathMovesU scholarship, and this past year she won the Hart High School District CSF Scholarship. In athletics, Rowan won Beam and placed third All-Around at Level 9 Nationals for gymnastics.

2018-2019 news

New book published! 2nd edition of Breaking Numbers Into Parts (Part 1 and 2)

We are excited to share that the 2nd edition of Breaking Numbers Into Parts, an innovative LAMC curriculum for kindergarten and 1st grade, is now published and available on Amazon.com (5 star reviews!). Parts 1 and 2 form a self-sufficient math enrichment course for a full academic year. 

The second edition of the book:

  • Uses a mathematical tool called Young diagrams to teach stu­dents breaking positive integers into parts in all the possible ways. 

    Utilizes the developed technique to prove commutativity of addition of natural numbers in an age-appropriate fashion. The book also explains why commutativity is such a big deal, in math and in real life.
  • Introduces numbers as points on the number line.
  • Establishes the concepts of digits and numbers, odd and even numbers, variables, operations (functions) and inverse operations, all in a way accessible to advanced kindergarten and 1st grade students.
  • Is feedback-based and contains many teach­ing tips, additional problems, solutions to most problems, as well as quizzes. Professional illustrations serve to enhance the content.

The book is currently used by the following programs:
 

  • Los Angeles Math Circle, a free Sunday math school for mathematically inclined children run by UCLA Department of Mathematics
  • CalTech Math and Science Circle
  • WorldSpeak School, an independent language immersion and math spe­cialized elementary school on Westwood Blvd. not far from UCLA campus
  • Creative Learning Place, an enrichment program catering to the needs of homeschooling families and charter schools, located on W. Olympic Blvd
  • STEMM, an enrichment program specializing in math and robotics, located in Torrance
     

2017-2018 news

Read our LAMC Newsletter - Spring 2018 Edition

Summer 2018: LAMC's graduating seniors take flight!

Seven LAMC participants graduated from high school  and are preparing to begin the college life in the fall. Pictured below are:
 

Murad Avliyakulov — attended math circle for 5 years; will attend Yale 

Sutton Shin — attended math circle for 7 years; will attend UC Berkeley

Edan’el Fishbein — attended math circle for 7 years; will attend UC San Diego 

Don Laackman (High School II group lead instructor) — taught math circle for 6 years; graduating with PhD in math from the department this year; will be Los Angeles Site Director and Program Coordinator for Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), a nonprofit organization that works to help underserved students enter advanced study of mathematics through summer and extracurricular programs.

Cy Gilman — attended math circle for 7 years; will attend Columbia University

Mason Hendrick - attended math circle for 4 years; will attend Loyola Marymount university

Maksym Schchepetkin attended math circle for 6 years;  will attend UCLA

One of our seniors, Megan Joshi, (pictured below) could not be there for the graduation. She has been with the math circle for 6 years and will go to MIT.

LAMC recently celebrated its 10th anniversary! 

Click here to learn more about how LAMC has evolved over the years and to read a couple testimonials from LAMC alumni. 

 

Guest Lecturers 2018-2019

Avet Grigoryan (IMO Medalist)
James Cameron (UCLA)
Dan Hoff (UCLA)
Sherry Gong (UCLA)
Paul Zeitz  (University of San Francisco &  Proof School)
Amit Sahai (UCLA)

Guest Lecturers 2017-2018

Nick Anderson (UCLA)
Aaron Cohen (KCG Holdings) 
 
Alex D. Austin (UCLA)

 

Guest Lecturers 2016-2017

Ted Courant (New Roads School)
Mike Hall (USC)
 

Guest Lecturers 2015-2016

Emmanuel Tsukerman (UC Berkeley)
Jared Claypoole, Julio Parra, Andrew Yuan (UCLA Physics)
 
Sanath Devalapurkar (high school student)
Bryant Mathews (Azusa Pacific University)
 

Guest Lecturers 2014-2015

David Patrick (Art of Problem Solving)
Bogdan Suceava (Cal State Fullerton)
 
Pooja Rao (SUNY, Stony Brook)
Alejandro Morales (UCLA)
 

Guest Lecturers 2013-2014

Igor Pak (UCLA)
David Weisbart (UCLA)
Po-Shen Loh (Carnegie Mellon University)
Susan Goodkin (California Learning Strategies Center) 
Vitaly Kresin (USC)
 

Guest Lecturers 2012-2013

Prof. Jonas Azzam (University of Washington, Seattle)
Dr. Oleg Gleizer
Prof. Christian Haesemeyer (UCLA)
Prof. Ciprian Manolescu (UCLA)
Prof. Mo Omar (CalTech) 
Prof. David Renfrew (UCLA)
Prof. Terence Tao (UCLA)

Guest Lecturers 2011-2012

Professor Robert Brown (UCLA)
Dr. Oleg Gleizer
Dr. Ali Gurel (Accord Institute, A* program)
Professor Johanna Hardin (Pomona College) 
Professor Ciprian Manolescu (UCLA)
Professor Christoph Thiele (UCLA)

Guest Lecturers 2010-2011

Professor Marek Biskup (UCLA)
Professor Kirby Baker (UCLA, retired)
Professor Alissa Crans (LMU)
Mr. William Fitz-Gibbon (Walter Reed Middle School, retired)
Professor Christian Haesemeyer (UCLA)
Professor Adrian Ioana (UCLA & Clay Math Inst.)
Professor Ciprian Manolescu (UCLA)
Professor Briant Matthews (Azuza Pac. Univ)
Professor Blake Mellor (LMU)
Professor Mario Michelli (UCLA)

Guest Lecturers 2009-2010

Professor Kirby Baker (UCLA, retired)
Mr. William Fitz-Gibbon (Walter Reed Middle School, retired)
Professor Christian Haesemeyer (UCLA)
Professor Ciprian Manolescu (UCLA)
Professor Igor Pak (UCLA)
Professor Dimitri Shlyakhtenko (UCLA)
Professor Zvezdelina Stankova (Mills College/
      Berkeley Math Circle)
Professor Christoph Thiele (UCLA) 
Professor Monica Visan (UCLA)
Professor Jared Weinstein (UCLA)

Guest Lecturers 2007-2008

Professor Andrea Brose (UCLA)
Professor Talia Fernos (UCLA)
Mr. William Fitz-Gibbon (Walter Reed Middle School)
Professor Ted Gamelin (UCLA)
Professor Tamara Kucherenko (UCLA)
Mr. Sean Markan (Art of Problem Solving)
Professor Dimitri Shlyakhtenko (UCLA)
Professor Luminita Vese (UCLA)
Dr. Kevin Wang (MathZoom)