Paul J. Karafiol, Board Chair

Paul has been committed to developing talent in young people since his first summer job as a counselor in the UChicago Young Scholars Program. He’s taught math at Phillips Academy, Providence-St. Mel School, and Payton College Prep. Currently he serves as the principal of Lake View High School. Outside of school, Paul coached the Chicago-Area All-Star Math Team and is the head author of the American Regions Math League Competition. Awards Paul has received include the ICTM Flener Award, the MAA’s Edith May Slyffe Award, and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching. He lives in Hyde Park with his wife, three children (two of whom attend CPS schools), and two dogs.

Gary Jones, Treasurer

Gary Jones is President of Jones Partners, Ltd., an independent consulting firm in the electric power industry. He is a retired Senior Vice President and Owner of Sargent & Lundy, LLC, an international consulting engineering firm in the electric power industry and served as a Senior Safety Engineer at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria. He founded the Chicagoland Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and has served on several Boards of Directors for non-profit organizations in the Chicago area, including EWB-Chicago, SALUTE, Inc. (which aids veterans and their families), and the Chicago Chapter of the American Nuclear Society. He also served on the Agassiz Local School Council.

riding bicycles, geometry, and has a new interest in algorithms.

Sendhil Revuluri, Secretary, Founding Member

Sendhil Revuluri works to improve opportunity for children in high-need schools. He currently serves as the Vice-President of the CPS Board of Education. He previously traded equity derivatives and helped launch a new public high school in the South Bronx (where he was recognized as a Math for America Master Teacher). He chairs the project committee of the Bright Promises Foundation, was recently elected Vice President of the IMSA Alumni Association and to the Board of the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow. His family lives in Pilsen, where his wife is an executive at a non-profit working to improve the lives and opportunities of people living in poverty, and his son is a kindergartener at a CPS elementary school.

Janice Jackson

Dr. Janice Jackson is a Senior Fellow whose work at Carnegie focuses on equity issues, such as improving high school and college attainment nationwide and ensuring that African American, Latinx, and Indigenous students receive exemplary education and social and emotional support. She is the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Jackson’s tenure at CPS—the nation’s 3rd largest school district with more than 355,000 students, 38,000 employees, and an annual budget of $7 billion—is most notable for the results the district attained in advancing equitable outcomes for its students. Recently, Jackson was named CEO of HOPE Chicago, a Nonprofit organization which seeks to reduce economic and social inequity by funding post- secondary scholarships and non-tuition costs for Chicago Public School graduates and adult family members.

Amie Wilkinson

Dr. Amie Wilkinson is a mathematician specializing in the field of dynamical systems.  She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, and previously worked as a professor at Northwestern.  Amie has taught  classes in the previous incarnation of the Math Circles of Chicago, the Payton Math Citywide Math Circle and is avidly interested in mathematical outreach.  She has been the recipient of several honors for her mathematical research and exposition, including  the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize, the Levi Conant Prize, and has given talks at the International Congress of Mathematicians.  She is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Amie lives in Lincoln Park with her husband Benson Farb; their two children attended Chicago Public Schools.

David Margolin

David Margolin is managing director of a boutique consulting firm. He initially became involved in Math Circles of Chicago through his son, who has been enthusiastically spending Saturdays doing math for several years now. David lives in Roscoe Village with his wife and two children.

Archana Rana

Archana Rana is mom to two CPS kids and is passionate about making education accessible to all children. Professionally she works at Mars Incorporated leading their HR Operations Strategy team. Having spent half her life in India and United States she considers herself to be a global citizen. In her free time, she enjoying cooking foods from around the world. Archana lives in Little Italy with her husband and two children.

Lawrence Tanzman

Lawrence Tanzman is a CPS alumnus and a prior student of two of the founding members of the Math Circles of Chicago. Lawrence works for a financial company in Chicago trading equity derivatives. Lawrence has taught a Math Circle session on mathematics in Finance, and also hosts a Guesstimathon every year at the QED Math Symposium.

Ann Turner

Ann Turner coordinated and organized the math circle at Lane Tech High School. After leaving Pricewaterhouse Coopers to raise her 3 children, her family settled in Chicago in 2008. In addition to her involvement in MC², Ann founded an incentive-based literacy program, the Summer Reading Challenge. This program inspires reading among students from pre-k through 8th grade during the summer break, and has donated thousands of books to CPS students over the last 8 years. She also serves Hope4All-Chicago Lights, an organization working to meet the needs of those facing poverty. In her free time, she is an avid hiker and has summited over 25 14,000-foot mountains.

Benitta Jones

Benitta Jones is a STEM Specialist for a Chicago public school in the Little Village community. She is passionate about ensuring that students have access to STEM careers. Before transitioning into this role, Benitta has served as a high school mathematics instructor for 15 years. Benitta is a Chicago native, CPS alum, and currently resides in the North Kenwood community with her husband and daughter.