Melanie Wood

Melanie Wood, born 1981, was the first, and until 2004, the only female American to make the U.S. Math Olympiad Team, receiving silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiad. She won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2003 in addition to becoming the first American woman and second woman overall to be named a Putnam Fellow. In 2004, she won the Morgan Prize. After an undergraduate career at Duke University as an Angier B. Duke Scholar, she now studies mathematics at Princeton University. In 2005, she was named the Deputy Leader of the U.S. team for the 2005 International Mathematical Olympiad. An interview with Melanie that appeared in Math Horizons is available at http://www.american.edu/academic.depts/cas/mathstat/Events/wood_visit/MWoodInterview.pdf. A feature article published in Discover magazine about Melanie is available at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_6_21/ai_62277745.