Rosalie Dance, Ph.D., an assistant professor of mathematics at UVI, is in Senegal as a member of the Advisory Board for the International Workshop on Research in Mathematics Education. The workshop, which began in Dakar today, precedes the start of the 2006 Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad (PAMO) in that city. Dance was invited to participate in the workshop's Advisory Board, which consists of three board members from Africa and three from the United States.

Members of the Advisory Board will provide advice on the workshop's agenda, speakers and possible follow-up activities, and will participate in targeted studies as part of research teams from Africa and the United States. The teams will provide a broad framework for strategies to improve mathematics education in Africa and the United States at all levels of education.

"It's an opportunity for American and African mathematics education researchers to share their findings," Dance said of the two-day workshop in Senegal.

Dance has taught mathematics at UVI since 1998. She spent six years in Tanzania in the 1960s and has returned over the years for teacher trainings and workshops in Tanzania, Ghana, the Gambia and South Africa.

Sponsored by Quality Education for Minorities, which received a grant from the National Science Foundation, the International Workshop on Research in Mathematics Education has two goals. It aims to provide a forum on mathematics education across the African continent and to strengthen the communication and information flow between U.S. education researchers, mathematicians and their African counterparts.