According to cmu.edu, when Rachel Zhang and Meghal Gupta first began competing in national math competitions they realized how few female competitors there were. This lead to both of them coaching the U.S. European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) team and ultimately the inaugural G2 (Girls Together) Math Program. The program is a two-week summer camp for high school girls that is hosted at Carnegie Mellon University. According to Zhang, “Targeting the top tier of girls doing math is extremely powerful,” Gupta added in saying that, “One of the goals is to bring all of the highest achieving girls together so they can move up the ranks and then more girls will follow as they look up to them.” The pair also agreed that they noticed a lack of girls competing at national contests and qualifying for the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. The pair joined forces with Sherry Gong, an assistant professor at Texas A&M in order to create and execute the new math program. From July 24th through August 6th, high schoolers from across the United States took classes and worked on solving problems along with instructors and other students. The program also featured guest speakers who talked about higher level math, research topics, and professional development topics. The summer program has been held at CMU under the guidance of Po-Shen Loh, head coach of the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad since 2015.
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