Anna (Ania) Burago, is the founder and lead teacher of Prime Factor. She is a software developer and a mathematician with a long-time passion for math circles. In her classes, she combines the rich traditions of the Russian-style mathematics for gifted children with her experience of teaching extracurricular math in a US classroom.
Anna grew up in Russia, in St. Petersburg. Her passion for math dates back to her school years in Russia. Anna was an enthusiastic math circle student who grew into an enthusiastic math circle teacher.
In the US, Anna has taught math circles for the past 10 years. With a group of friends, they started the first Seattle math circle in 2002. The primary motivation was to provide their children with the benefits of math circle education. This affair resulted in organizing Northwest Academy of Sciences: a group of circles where Anna still remains a lead teacher (www.nwsciences.org). The Prime Factor is a direct spin-off of Northwest Academy and is organized in order to make circles more accessible for students in the Seattle area.
Anna is a book author. Her book "A Year of a Mathematical Circle" is published by AMS (American Mathematical Society, "Mathematical Circles Library" series, 2013). The book contains a full set of materials (lessons and problem sets) for one year of a middle-school math circle teaching.
Anna is involved in a lot of other extracurricular math activities. She is a regular speaker and participant of the MSRI (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley) math circle conferences. She is a visiting lecturer at SIMUW (Summer Institute of Mathematics at the University of Washington). Anna taught Math Challenge for Robinson Center for Young Scholars (UW). She is also a local Math Kangaroo Competition organizer.
Anna received her first degree in math from the St. Petersburg State University, Russia. Her Master degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science are both from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Luba Malkina got her Masters degree in Mathematics from Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia.
For the past several years, she has been teaching math circles at Northwest Academy of Sciences. She had also been a coach of elementary and middle school math teams that successfully performed in various local and regional math contests.
Luba has been developing an online interactive elementary school math curriculum for Reasoning Mind, Inc for several years; she is now working for Perfection Learning, Inc, creating the electronic math textbooks for middle and high school students.
