Department Hosts 2026 Sonia Kovalevsky Day
The Department of Sciences and Mathematics hosted the 2026 Sonia Kovalevsky Day on Friday, Oct. 23.
Sonia Kovalevsky was an outstanding 19th century mathematician and the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in mathematics. Every year, universities around the country honor her with a day-long session of mathematics activities, workshops, and competitions for high school students interested in mathematics.
The W’s Sonia Kovalevsky Day activities were organized by departmental faculty Dr. Josh Hanes, associate professor of mathematics, Dr. Hwamog Kim, associate professor of mathematics, and Dr. Sarah Poiani, assistant professor of mathematics.
About 100 high school students, along with their mathematics teachers, participated. Students and teachers came from Heritage Academy, North Panola High School, Caledonia High School, Pontotoc High School, Shannon High School, Jumpertown High School, and Coffeeville High School.
Students started the day with a calculator-free math competition, consisting of 35 math problems. The top scorers in the competition were announced at the end of the day.
Then there was a keynote address from Dr. Phil Kains, who talked about what it means to be a “math person”. Dr Kains is assistant professor of mathematics at Bellhaven University.
After that, students broke out into small-group sessions on math and math-related topics led by W faculty. There were six small-group sessions to choose from, and each student did three of the six.
The small group sessions had students learning and doing activities in topics ranging from “Tavern Games and the Discovery of Probability” (Dr. Nora Corrigan), “The Mathematics of Voting” (Dr. Sarah Poiani), “The Fabric of Reality — Gravity, Space, and Time” (Dr. Josh Hanes), “Testing Hypothesis With Dice” (Dr. Travis Hagey) and others.
The day ended with the winners of the math competition being announced. Winners were awarded scholarships to the W as well as some W souvenirs.
