2022 AWM Presidential Recognition Award

2022 AWM Presidential Recognition Award is Presented to Mathematically Gifted & Black

The 2022 Association for Women in Mathematics Presidential Recognition Award was presented to the founders of Mathematically Gifted & Black, Erica Graham (Bryn Mawr), Raegan Higgins (Texas Tech), Candice Price (Smith College), and Shelby Wilson (Johns Hopkins).

Citation. The website Mathematically Gifted and Black (MGB), founded in 2016, highlights 28 living Black mathematicians each year during Black History month. The honorees are featured on the website with a photo and their responses to questions about their lives and mathematical interests. The first-person storytelling and the frequent contextualization of math in terms of a full life experience make each of these contributions a small treasure trove of insight and inspiration. Honorees’ expertise ranges from K-12 education to government and industry to highly technical research mathematics, reflecting a broad and inclusive definition of who is a mathematician that the rest of the math community would benefit from emulating. As of today, MGB offers almost 200 mathematical role models for the Black community and provides abundant stories of Black excellence in math and in life. MGB also offers a tremendous resource to the broader math community, both for historical documentation and as a useful reference. AWM has relied on MGB in our work, to find speakers and panelists, to identify potential editors for our new research journal, and to expand the scope of research group leaders and participants in research networks beyond “who the organizers know.” It also provides content for our social media streams, as we regularly retweet the MGB account when they feature women. Today, we honor MGB for its excellence in highlighting the excellence of others.

Response from the MGB founders. We are pleased to receive the 2022 AWM Presidential Recognition Award. As the founders and directors of Mathematically Gifted and Black, we appreciate AWM’s acknowledgement of the impact our work has on increasing the visibility of historically and systemically excluded individuals in the mathematical sciences. We are committed to continuing this valuable work.