Faq

Yes! All are welcome. We encourage post-docs, professors, and anyone else involved in the math world to participate in this opportunity to uplift and celebrate marginalized voices.

Yes! Our community guidelines can be found here.

We often hear people ask whether OURFA2M2 will be in person in the future, and the answer to this question is no. The O in OURFA2M2 stands for “online,” and the format is important to us for accessibility. 

We want people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to be able to participate in our programming without risking contracting a contagious disease that may be devastating to their health in ways it wouldn’t be for other individuals. We want people with limited mobility, people with caretaking responsibilities, and people without the resources to travel to be able to participate. 

This is why OURFA2M2 is online, and why we record many of our sessions for those who can’t view them live.

We encourage organizers of other events to consider virtual and hybrid programming to increase accessibility.

Please share information about our conference with students and faculty you think would be interested! The most effective thing you can do is spread the word so more people know this resource is available to them.

Anyone can submit speaker nominations. We want to hear who you think would be an excellent speaker for next year.

If you are a current or recent undergraduate, consider applying to be a future organizer :)

We use the term marginalized backgrounds to include (but not limit to!) students of color, LGBTQ+ students, woman students, community college students, first generation college students, and disabled and chronically ill students. 

Many of our organizers share these identities, which informs how we have developed the conference.

The very first OURFA2M2 was hosted on December 19th, 2020. Lee, Vanessa, Brittany, Amaury, and Alvaro founded the organization and produced the first conference in partnership with the AMS. We had 33 speakers and 359 registrants. 

The second annual OURFA2M2 was hosted on December 4th and 5th, 2021. This year, Luke, Michael, and Shreya joined the team, and Amaury retired. We became partners with the MAA and solicited financial support from 9 organizations to pay our speakers and organizers and cover operational costs. We raised $17,465 in funding from Mount Holyoke, Rutgers, MIT, Rose-Hulman, Indiana University, AMS, SIAM, and AoPS, and Maplesoft donated licenses. We had 38 speakers, 403 registrants, and 165 attendees. 

The third annual OURFA2M2 was hosted on November 19th and 20th, 2022. This year, Ashka, Zoe, Jenna, and Bowen joined the team, and Shreya retired. We applied for and received grant DUE-2230388 from the NSF, totaling $49,960. We had 38 speakers, 851 registrants from more than 100 unique educational institutions, and 305 attendees. 

The fourth annual OURFA2M2 was hosted on November 18th and 19th, 2023. This year, tahda, Gavi, and Salina joined the team and Michael, Alvaro, Brittany, and Vanessa retired. We applied for and received grant DUE-2333129 from the NSF, totaling $49,736. We had 37 speakers, 631 registrants, and 216 attendees.

The fifth annual OURFA2M2 will be on February 8th and 9th, 2025. In 2024, Skye, Cyrus, Sierra, Javohn, and Lydia joined the team, and Lee, Luke, Jenna, Salina, and Zoe retired. We will have 35 speakers.

Our logo is the 27th stellation of the icosahedron. All 59 stellations were enumerated in 1958 by Coxeter et al. This polyhedron is multi-faceted and lives within a large family of great variety, much like the many mathematicians we aim to advocate for and build alliances between.