Po Shen Loh Visits the Ateneo

His blurb describes him as a social entrepreneur and inventor - both true - but math olympiad enthusiasts in the country know him more as the Leader of the US Team to the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). Po-Shen Loh steered the US to top place in the IMO team rankings in 2015, a feat that their country's teams last accomplished in 1994. This is what math contest circles know about him. Their supporters fortunately didn't have to wait as long, as Po's team replicated this feat 3 more times in the span of just a few years.

Where people expected a spartan training regimen engineered to propel the US Team to the top, they found instead a collaborative philosophy that emphasizes appreciating math for its sake. I remember being surprised a few years back when I received an invitation for the Philippine Team to join their training camp. They've started inviting other countries for the purpose of learning from each other, the very same competitors they'll face in the IMO. We sent our regrets, explaining that visa application schedules just didn't allow it.

Po-Shen Loh's announcement in October 2022 that he was visiting Manila in January generated a lot of buzz among his followers here. His summer tours in the US have been noteworthy events which targeted the general public, as he talked in public parks about such things as math in games and inventions. He's probably the only Carnegie Mellon professor who does that. So when the Ateneo Mathematics Society (AMS) was approached to see if they could organize the logistics for a talk in Metro Manila, and they in turn asked the Department of Mathematics for help, we realized this was an opportunity we had to grab. With help from the AMS, we organized with other local organizations a day-long series of talks at Leong Hall on January 6, 2023.

The first session, "Math in Our Daily Lives", talked precisely about that, through the lens of his team's development of an app for digital contact tracing, drawing from their experiences in math, game theory, and computer science.

The next session, "Thoughts on Learning and Teaching Mathematics", was moderated by the Philippine Council of Mathematics Teachers Educators (MATHTED). He talked about the need for students to go beyond just knowing procedures and should instead be able to observe patterns.

The last session, "Experiences from Mathematical Olympiads", was moderated by the Mathematical Society of the Philippines. He talked about not making it his goal to maximize scores, but instead maximizing the chance he was going to read about some of them in the future. He dispensed advice on the contestant experience, and was asked his thoughts on not winning, and on why there are more boys than girls in the IMO.

While preparing for the talks, Po mentioned wanting to meet as many people as he could who wanted to talk to him. While this event was not the only one he had in his short stay in the Philippines, this was apparently the largest which was open to the general public. His talks are available at the YouTube channel of the Department of Mathematics:

Session 1 - Encountering Math in our Lives

Session 2 - Thoughts on Learning and Teaching Mathematics

Session 3 - Experiences from Mathematical Olympiads