European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad

25 May 2022

Academics from the School of Mathematical Sciences have guided a team of young female mathematicians to represent Ireland at the 11th European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) held in Hungary recently. The team was led by Dr Anca Mustata, School of Mathematical Sciences with deputy Pierre Schatz from Université Paris-Saclay, currently a research guest at UCD. 

The team trained both online and on-site in Western Gateway Building, UCC, clocking up more than 50 hours of challenging and rewarding mathematics learning and problem-solving. Along with the leaders, the team was also supported by School of Mathematical Sciences lecturer Dr Andrei Mustata and UCC students Laura Cosgrave and Suneet Mahajan.

This year Ireland was represented by Emily Woolfe (5th year) from Bruce College, Cork; Ayushi Mahajan and Kate Ahern (5th year), both from Christ the King Secondary School, Cork; and Sofia Babic (4th year) from Confey College, Dublin. 

Ireland has a long history participation at the EGMO, working itself up the rankings, reaching a peak in 2017 when we came ahead of many countries with strong Mathematical traditions such as Japan, Switzerland, Brazil, India, and others.

In the 10 years of participation, team Ireland students have won three silver, five bronze medals and multiple honourable mentions. More importantly, EGMO has engendered new levels of confidence and commitment among our young female mathematicians. For example, the percentage of girls on the Irish team at the International Mathematical Olympiad has risen from the global average of 8% before 2011 to an average of 33% during 2015-2020, and in four out of the last five years, the team captain (best performer in the Irish Mathematical Olympiad) has been a girl. The team members have gone on to successful degrees and Mathematics careers; others like Laura Cosgrave, who is currently a UCC undergraduate student in Mathematics and a Naughton Foundation scholar, are now helping train the next generation of female mathematicians.

The Covid-19 restrictions illustrated the importance of the social aspect of Mathematics for female students in particular. Despite a large amount of online training, the motivation, levels of participation, and performance of female students in Mathematical problem-solving dropped drastically during the past two years. This shows the particular importance of role models and face-to-face interaction in keeping the girls engaged with mathematical activities.

After two years of online competitions, the students were delighted to be able to participate again in the live EGMO 2022 event. The Hungarian organisers worked hard to prepare an unforgettable experience for all participants. The whole event exceeded our teams’ expectations. In addition to the contest itself – where they managed to double last year’s score - the team took part in lots of team challenges, hiking, sightseeing, singing and dancing, and made friends from around the word.