Inspire students with Pride Month math activities
It’s Pride Month – time to celebrate and honor the lives and contributions of LGBTQ+ people in mathematics. Inspiring students with Pride Month math activities promotes inclusivity and offers fun, engaging ways to teach relevant math concepts.
Alan Turing (1939)
One of the world’s most famous mathematicians and cryptographers, Alan Turing invented the bombe machines that broke Nazi codes during World War II. He is often considered the father of modern computing. In addition to shortening World War II, he theorized about Artificial Intelligence and created the Turing Test to determine whether a computer can think.
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
Antonia Jane Jones (1983)
British mathematician and computer scientist Antonia Jane Jones is known for mathematical computation, particularly in genetic algorithms and neural networks. She used an interdisciplinary approach, which integrated theoretical mathematics with practical applications and led to more efficient and powerful computational models. Her research has been influential in AI and machine learning. She joined Brunel University London in 1983 as an Information Technology lecturer.
Build math foundations with Reflex.
Photo credit: https://www.derbyshirelgbt.org.uk/latest-news/antonia-jane-jones-1943-2010
Peter Landin (2001)
Peter Landin’s work in computer programming languages led to the later development of JavaScript. He was among the first to realize that lambda calculus could be used to model a programming language. Born in Sheffield, England, Landin graduated from Clare College in Cambridge and was involved with international standards in programming and informatics. In 2001, he gave a workshop on the history of programming at the Science Museum in London.
Program a robot and send it on its way.
Photo credit: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/sep/22/peter-landin-obituary
Autumn Kent (2014)
Autumn Kent is an American mathematician specializing in topology and geometry. She originally planned to become a high-school English teacher but switched to mathematics. Kent earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. She has published over 20 papers in various journals and earned an NSF Career Award for studying moduli of Riemann surfaces. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in the 2024 class of fellows.
Explore math concepts like Kent!
Investigate Geometric Probability
Photo credit: https://news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-mathematicians-named-simons-fellows/
Ron Buckmire (2020)
Ron Buckmire was born in Grenada and spent the majority of his childhood in the United States until his family moved to Barbados when he was 11. He moved back to the US for college after he completed high school in the Caribbean. Buckmire has 20+ years of experience teaching courses primarily in applied mathematics and conducting research in numerical analysis and mathematical modeling, which is valuable in his job at the National Science Foundation (he worked there until 2018). He co-founded Specta, an association supporting LGBTQ mathematicians. In 2020, Buckmire was named VP for equity, diversity, and inclusion for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Buckmire believes everyone can and should do mathematics. Build foundational math skills with Reflex!
.png)
Juliette Bruce (2020)
Juliette Bruce is a mathematician who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. She specializes in geometry, arithmetic geometry, and commutative algebra. Bruce moved to the University of California, Berkeley, and works as an NSF Postdoctoral fellow. Bruce is a very passionate member of the LGBTQ+ community. She organizes a variety of conferences, including those devoted to promoting gender equity and supporting LGBTQ+ mathematicians.
Build skills for algebra with Frax!
Photo credit: https://www.ngpf.org/blog/math/math-monday-3-lgbtq-mathematicians-to-highlight-in-your-classroom/
Emily Riehl (2022)
Emily Riehl is an associate professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. Riehl performed work on category theory and homotopy theory, and studies the way in which different mathematical or geometric objects relate to one another. In 2022, she was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Riehl has published over 20 papers and two books on higher category theory and homotopy theory. Riehl is active in promoting access to the world of mathematics. She is a co-founder of Spectra: the Association for LGBT Mathematicians.
Looking for interactive, engaging ways to teach math?
Photo credit: https://mathematics.jhu.edu/directory/emily-riehl/
Looking for different grade-level solutions?
Discover all of our research-based STEM solutions.
