Professor Emeritus Denny Gulick recited 100 digits of Pi and faculty, staff and students enjoyed dessert pies.

The University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences hosted its annual Pi Day celebration in the James A. Yorke Rotunda of William E. Kirwan Hall.

Mathematics Professor Emeritus Denny Gulick recited the first 100 digits of Pi and then shared a limerick he wrote about the number [watch the video].

The college gave out 440 slices of dessert pie in just 12 minutes! 

Plus, in honor of Michael and Eugenia Brin’s generous $25 million gift to the Brin Mathematics Research Center, Dining Services had a special pizza station in the dining halls.

Read more about the members of our community who have been honored recently for their outstanding contributions to the university and the field of mathematics.

Faculty

• Sean Gruber won the CMNS Dean’s outstanding lecturer award.
• Abba Gumel, who was named a Distinguished University Professor.
• Dan Cristofaro-Gardiner, Dima Dolgopyat, Adam Kanigowski, and Tamas Darvas, who won
• the Frontiers of Science Award.
• Uri Bader, Adam Kanigowski, Dan Cristofaro-Gardiner were invited to speak at the 2026
• International Congress of Mathematics (ICM).
• Francisco Arana-Herrera (a postdoc) won the Michael Brin Dynamical Systems Prize for Young Mathematicians.
• Dima Dolgopyat was named a Simons Foundation Fellow.
• Larry Washington won the 2025 Winston Family Award, by the Honors College.
• Larry Washington won the 2025 CMNS Board of Visitors Creative Educator Award.
• Tamás Darvas for being awarded the Purdue Science 2025 Distinguished Science Alumni Award

Students

• Our Putnam team won 7th place (out of over 450 universities). This is the third year in a row that the Maryland team finishes in the top 8.
• 3 Goldwater Scholars: Harikesh Kailad (CS+Math), Luiz Mata Lopez (CS+Math), Benjamin Raufman (Chem+Math)
• Brandon Kolstoe won the CMNS Board of Visitors outstanding graduate student award
• Menting Chao (AMSC), won the CMNS Dean’s outstanding teaching assistant award
• Aditi Sen for winning the Edward C. Bryant Award for an outstanding graduate student in survey statistics

Recent high school graduates can bypass sophomore math requirements by taking exams to earn college math credits at UMD.

In 2019, the University of Maryland created an innovative program that revolutionized how talented high school students transition to college-level mathematics. The credit-by-exam initiative, spearheaded by UMD Department of Mathematics Chair Doron Levy and Professor Lawrence Washington, allows advanced high school students to take final exams for sophomore-level college math courses—and earn UMD credits if they pass.

“The program is really a win-win for both our department and for incoming UMD students,” Levy said. “We’ve attracted a lot of remarkable talent to UMD in the past few years and these advanced students have also been able to smoothly transition into our department as well as into many others such as physics or engineering.”

Unlike traditional Advanced Placement exams, which typically allow students to earn credits for freshman-level math courses like Calculus I and II (at UMD, the equivalents of MATH 140 and MATH 141), UMD’s program addresses a critical gap for students who master material well beyond this level. Many students from STEM magnet schools, international baccalaureate programs and accelerated math tracks take multivariable calculus and linear algebra (both college sophomore-level content) before graduating high school. Yet few universities recognized this advanced achievement for incoming freshmen, which often led to frustration for new college students hoping to save time and money by avoiding repeating material.

The first year, nearly 150 students took the MATH 240: Calculus III exam and 120 passed. A quarter of the passing students then enrolled at UMD, with six math majors in the cohort—a success for the university’s recruitment effort and official recognition of the students’ abilities.  

“One of our major goals is to lighten students’ course loads by making it easier for them to get through their general education or foundational math credits,” Lawrence explained. “With those classes out of the way, students can free up their schedules for electives that really interest them or put them ahead in their major programs with higher-level courses.”

Building a stronger math cohort today and tomorrow

To prepare high school teachers hoping to help students review for the exams, UMD faculty members provided them access to previous unused exams stored in the department’s test bank as study material. The credit-by-exam tests are carefully selected from previous years’ unused alternate tests—the same ones reserved for UMD students who miss their scheduled finals. Like real college exams, the tests are monitored and taken within similar time constraints. This ensures that the high school students earning credit meet the same standards as their college counterparts.

The credit-by-exam program was a game-changer for mathematics major Samuel Lidz, who participated as a Montgomery Blair High School student in 2021. He believes that taking the exam as a high school student made a difference to his academic experience at UMD because it allowed him quicker access to the kind of advanced content that he always wanted to study. 

“I took the Calc III credit by exam and received an A for it, which let me avoid taking any math courses below the 400 level by the time I got to UMD,” Lidz explained. “By my sophomore year here, I was already taking graduate-level courses. I wouldn’t have been able to accelerate so far ahead had I not taken the exam.” The math credit-by-exam program has grown significantly since its launch in 2019 with four schools. In 2024, approximately 600 students from 15 schools took the exams for MATH 240, 241 and 246. 

As of spring 2025, the following schools from Howard and Montgomery Counties are enrolled in the program:

• Colonel Zadok Magruder High School
• Georgetown Preparatory School
• Montgomery Blair High School
• Poolesville High School 
• Richard Montgomery High School 
• Springbrook High School 
• Thomas S. Wootton High School 
• Walter Johnson High School 
• Walt Whitman High School 
• Wheaton High School 
• Winston Churchill High School 

Washington also received inquiries from other area schools. He believes this is a testament to the initiative’s success and hopes that the program will continue to grow and help students for years to come.

“Other students going to various universities outside Maryland have reached out and requested a description of our courses or a copy of the exams,” Washington said. “I assume these schools have at least considered letting students take courses that need the advanced course as a prerequisite. It’s a sign that the program is working and helping students get what they need to succeed.”

Written by Georgia Jiang