The Young Mathematical Story Authors (YMSA) competition is delighted to announce the launch of a new 16–19 years category from 2027: the Andy Field Award, named after Professor Andy Field of the University of Sussex. Andy will also join the competition’s international judging panel to judge entries submitted to this new category.
Andy is Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Sussex and an internationally recognised statistics educator and author. He has written several widely used books aimed at making statistical ideas accessible and engaging, including Discovering Statistics Using R & R Studio, Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics, Discovering Statistics using JASP and An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma.
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His work is particularly closely aligned with the ethos of the YMSA competition. In An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma, Andy departed from the conventional textbook format by embedding the teaching of statistics within a fictional narrative, supported by visual storytelling. The story follows Zach as he attempts to find the missing Alice while learning the statistical concepts needed to unravel the mystery.
The addition of the Andy Field Award extends the YMSA competition to young people aged 4–19, having previously been open to those aged 4–16. The competition is the world’s first annual international competition established to encourage young mathematics learners from around the world to creatively embed their mathematics learning within meaningful and engaging contexts by creating their own mathematical story picture books. Founded by Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Reading) through his non-profit research-based MathsThroughStories.org initiative, the competition has run annually since 2019 and has so far received entries from more than 7,000 students across over 40 countries.
Commenting on the new award, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai, said:
“I am absolutely delighted that Andy has agreed not only to lend his name to this new award, but also to personally judge the entries. As our competition expands to include 16–19-year-olds for the first time, I cannot think of a more fitting person to represent this new category. Andy’s work beautifully demonstrates that even increasingly sophisticated mathematical and statistical concepts can be made meaningful, accessible and engaging through narrative and visual storytelling. I hope the Andy Field Award will inspire older students around the world to be equally creative in how they communicate their own mathematical understanding.”
Professor Andy Field commented:
“Making mathematical ideas accessible has been at the heart of my teaching at the University of Sussex for more than 25 years. I am as passionate as ever about thinking outside of the box to engage and inspire students to love mathematics and statistics. The Young Mathematical Story Authors (YMSA) competition embodies these values. It is a great honour to have the new 16-19 category named the Andy Field Award and to contribute to the international judging panel. I am very much looking forward to reading the entries.”
To learn more about the Andy Field Award, the different age categories and how to enter the YMSA competition, click here.
