In 1994, Mirzakhani and her friend Roya Beheshti were the first two women from Iran to participate in the International Mathematical Olympiad. Mirzakhani’s life is not just an inspiration in itself but can also indicate the way forward for increasing the number of women in mathematics. Just a question at the beginning of a test asking the gender of the participant can stimulate “stereotype threat” and lead to women performing worse than they are capable of. In an article for The Mathematics Teacher journal, Loretta Kelley argues that teaching biographies of women mathematicians in classrooms can also help. In her article, Kelley does a brief survey of the works of prominent women mathematicians over the centuries and the challenges they had to face.

Source: Mint July 26, 2017 20:15 UTC