2025 Sonia Kovalevsky
Mathematics Day
- Saturday, October 4, 2025
- Hosted by: North Dakota State University
- 8:30am-3:15pm
- A. Glenn Hill, Room 300
Building Community, Confidence & Curiosity
The Department of Mathematics proudly hosts Sonia Kovalevsky Day each year, a free event celebrating women in mathematics and inspiring the next generation of female mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and innovators.
Local middle and high school students, along with their teachers, are invited to explore mathematics beyond the classroom through engaging, hands-on activities. The event fosters curiosity, confidence, and community while connecting students with peers and female role models in STEM.
All students are welcome to attend. Participants will receive prizes, along with a light breakfast and pizza lunch. Teacher-led groups traveling over 100 miles round trip may qualify for mileage reimbursement and a complimentary hotel stay. Please indicate hotel needs when completing the registration form.
The Most Widely Known
Russian Mathematician of the Late 19th Century
She was born Sonia Korvin to a family of the minor nobility in Moscow in 1850. She developed an early interest in poetry and mathematics. When her father objected to her studies, she continued them secretly. She did not receive a formal mathematics education in Russia. She was exposed to mathematics in a curious way. During the renovation of the family country estate, one of the children's rooms was temporarily wallpapered with some notes from a text on calculus. In her autobiography, A Russian Childhood, she recalled that she had "passed hours before that mysterious wall, trying to decipher even a single phrase and to discover the order in which the sheets ought to follow each other." At age 15 in St. Petersburg she took private lessons from a professor at the naval academy who was astounded with the quickness with which she grasped ideas.
Sponsors
The Sonia Kovalevsky High School Day Program at NDSU is supported by the NDSU Department of Mathematics, the NDSU College of Arts and Sciences, the NDSU Bookstore, the NDSU Provost Office, the NDSU Foundation-Board of Trustees, and the NDSU Alumni Friends of Sonia Kovalevsky Day. We gratefully acknowledge their support.
