About the Math Circle

The Colorado Math Circle offers extracurricular math opportunities for young math enthusiasts from around the state. The goal is to develop problem-solving skills, promote collaboration, strengthen mathematical writing, improve oral communication skills, and, most importantly, build a supportive math community. The math circle meets on the University of Colorado Boulder campus once or twice a month for math talks and problem-solving sessions. It also offers weekly afterschool online classes. In 2024–25, the math circle attracted more than 110 participants from 45 different schools.

The Colorado Math Circle began in 2005 when it formed a 15-member Colorado team of high school students to compete in the 2006 ARML Competition. The Colorado team won first place in the B Division that year and has participated annually ever since, traveling out of state with 30–35 of Colorado's top math students to compete against regional teams from around the country.

Over the years, math circle students have won prestigious awards such as Math Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) invitations, USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) and Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) top rankings, ARML Competition top 10 individual rankings, Math Prize for Girls first place, and U.S. Girls Math Olympiad Team selection.

Math circle alumni have received many honors including the Goldwater Scholarship, Rhodes Scholarship, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, AWM Alice T. Schafer Prize, Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize honorable mention, and William Lowell Putnam Competition Fellow. Alumni have earned PhDs from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, Cornell, and many other institutions. Some are entrepreneurs or work in industry for companies like Google, NVIDIA, SpaceX, and OpenAI. Several alumni are actively engaged in directing and teaching math outreach programs like HCSSiM, MathILy, MathPath, and the Colorado Math Circle.

The Colorado Math Circle is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation run by volunteers (including the directors) who donate their time. Tax-deductible donations are welcome and much appreciated.

Here is an article about the math circle published in the CU Boulder Arts and Sciences Magazine, October 2025.

 

Directors

Silva Chang is the founder of the Colorado Math Circle and has directed it since inception. She is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at CU Boulder where she teaches math and computer programming courses. Born and raised in New York City, Silva participated in ARML as a member of the NYC math team in high school, and attended the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Math (HCSSiM). At Oberlin College, she double majored in mathematics and East Asian Studies, then received an M.S./M.Phil in computer science at Yale University. She has worked as a software developer, a website designer, and a manager in a tea shop.

Silva led the Summit MS MATHCOUNTS Team to first place in the state competition for five consecutive years. She also was the advisor for the Fairview HS Math Club for several years. Silva has been Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) 8 since 2018. She writes and reviews problems for the AMC 8/10/12 contests. Silva also is a member of the Board of Directors for the MathPath summer program, where she taught for several summers. She is a former member of the Colorado Mathematics Awards Steering Committee, and has given talks about the Colorado Math Circle at the Joint Mathematics Meetings and the Rocky Mountain MAA Section Meetings.

Silva has been recognized with the 2022 Samuel L. Greitzer Distinguished ARML Coach Award, 2020 CU Boulder Faculty Assembly Excellence Award in Leadership and Service, and 2014 National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Colorado Educator of the Year Award.

Thomas Davids is Co-Director of the Colorado Math Circle and Coach of the Colorado ARML Team. He grew up in Boulder, and is a Summit MS and Fairview HS alum. At Summit, he was a part of the school's founding MATHCOUNTS team that placed first in the state in 2003 and second in 2004, and was a member of the Colorado State MATHCOUNTS team in 2004. In high school, Thomas was a member of the Colorado ARML team in 2006, and placed 9th individually in the ARML competition of 2008. After graduating high school, Thomas attended Stanford University, where he majored in math with a minor in economics and a Masters in computer science.

After Stanford, Thomas has worked as a software engineer for Udacity (an education technology company), Google, boodleAI (providing technology services to nonprofits), and Google (again), where he currently works out of the Boulder office. Outside of work, you'll find him swimming with the Colorado Masters swimming program, playing music, and rooting for all of Colorado's sports teams.