About Us
The Utah Math Olympiad was founded by university students in 2012 with the goal of exposing students in Utah to accessible proof-based mathematics. The UMO committee currently consists of the following members:
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Sam Dittmer (2012 – present) is a three-time USAMO qualifier and two-time Putnam honorable mention from Indiana who has also lived in Albania. His interests have been described as “numbers numbers numbers politics”, but this is a gross oversimplification. He also likes movies. Sam won national ARML his sophomore year in high school. Sam graduated with a PhD in math from UCLA in 2019.
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Hiram Golze (2012 – present) is a math teacher at the Waterford School. He grew up in Utah, where he won the Utah State Math Contest twice and qualified for the USAMO once. He currently coaches the Utah ARML Team and has coached the Utah state MATHCOUNTS team. He has a master’s degree in math from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aside from math, Hiram enjoys playing Ultimate Frisbee, cycling, and hiking – sometimes up to two of these at a time.
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Caleb Stanford (2012 – present) is an assistant professor of computer science at UC Davis. He grew up in Utah, where he won the Utah State Math Contest five times and qualified for the USAMO once. He holds an ScB from Brown and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He enjoys thinking about math problems when he is supposed to be doing real work. He is also a fan of puzzle games, analytic philosophy, Facebook, Stack Exchange, and several productivity apps which he uses extensively. Caleb lives in the bay area with his wife and two cats.
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Grant Molnar (2015 – present) is from North Carolina, where he attended no exciting math competitions before college. As an undergraduate, he tied for third place in the Virginia Tech Regional Math Competition. He spends an undue amount of time enthusing about the beauty of obscure theorems to uninterested bystanders. Grant is interested in everything except college basketball. He graduated with his PhD in math from Dartmouth in 2023.
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Daniel South (2019 – present) attended Waterford School in Sandy, Utah. He took the USAMO twice and achieved two top-200 Putnam finishes in college. He graduated from UVU in 2023 and currently works as an actuary in Richmond, Virginia, where he is learning about statistics and data science within the super duper exciting world of insurance. Outside of work, Daniel enjoys hiking, cooking, music, poker, and watching sports.
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Zachary Klein (2024 – present) attended Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah. He qualified for Mathcounts nationals in 8th grade and won the Utah Math Olympiad his senior year. He is currently an undergraduate at Columbia University studying computer science and applied math. Zach enjoys math, poker, rock climbing, public transit, and future-predicting.