Outreach Grantee Highlight: University of Iowa

The MAA Programs Team is excited to announce our new Grantee Highlight Stories series! Over the next few months, we will be highlighting some of our amazing grantees and all that they have accomplished with MAA funding.

Have a great idea for your own math enrichment program for students? We are currently accepting applications for the Dolciani Mathematics Enrichment Grants program, Neff Outreach Fund, Tensor Women & Mathematics Grants program, and Tensor SUMMA Grants program for the 2024 award cycle.

Iowa City Math Club Project Director Dr. Mohammad Farajzadeh Tehrani

Dr. Mohammad Farajzadeh Tehrani founded the Iowa City Math Club in 2020 during the pandemic, however he became inspired to start the program when he first started at the University of Iowa in 2018. He noticed that there weren’t as many intensive, formal math enrichment programs in the midwest as there are on the east coast. So in an effort to create more opportunities for young students to engage with rigorous, upper level math, the Iowa Math City Math Club was created, building on offerings from the student-led Iowa City Math Circle. 

Dr. Tehrani meets with an average of 10 students, ranging from early middle school to early high school, at the Iowa City Public Library every two weeks for 90 minutes. During these meet-ups, he gives lectures and cultivates an environment for open discussions centered around challenging but approachable math questions. Each week focuses on topics independent of the previous week to give students the flexibility to join meetings whenever they can.

Iowa City Math Club Project Co-Director Dr. Weiyu Xu

In 2022, the Iowa City Math club saw great successes. Led by co-PI Dr. Weiyu Xu, they partnered with the Math Majors of America Tournament for High Schools (MMATHS) to host their first annual competition. One of the group’s senior members and an original Math Circle organizer went on to compete in the USAJMO and received an honorable mention for her performance. Another one of the group’s senior members received a Silver Award in the USAMO Competition and qualified for and attended the Math Olympiad Program (MOP), making him the only student from Iowa to attend MOP in recent years. This was a feat he said that would not have been possible without the support of the Iowa City Math Club.

If you are interested in applying for a Dolciani Mathematics Enrichment Grants (DMEG), applications are now open. Learn more about the DMEG program at maa.org/dmeg.