First Sri Lankan female student to win Bronze medal at IMO

Written by: S. A. Sukhithi Chamali
Interview conducted by: Thishanka Alahakoon

Nelushi Vithanachchi is currently a Grade-13 student in the Physical Science stream at Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo. She recently brought glory to her alma mater and Sri Lanka by becoming the first female student, from Sri Lanka, to win a Bronze medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2020.

Nelushi’s interest in Mathematics started in Grade-7 when she was selected to the National Pool for the International Mathematics and Science Olympiad (IMSO), organized by the Ministry of Education. Since then, her passion for mathematics has led her to be involved in the field for around five years now and she has taken part in many competitions, including the National Math Olympiad, Sri Lanka Mathematical Competition (SLMC), International Mathematics Competition (IMC) and Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO) and has represented Sri Lanka at 12 international competitions, including three IMOs, one of at which she made her remarkable achievement of winning a Bronze medal, in 2020. Speaking about her experience at the IMO, Nelushi says even though the questions presented are not easy, they are very original and can be solved using the most fundamental theorems of Mathematics. She goes on to say the satisfaction of managing to solve a problem, after countless approaches, is a very good experience. Nelushi speaks about her journey at the IMO and says that, “In the normal curriculum, you are penalized for thinking outside the box, but in the Math Olympiad, it’s totally different: there is no specific way to solve the problems, you need to come up with solutions at that moment.”

When asked which area of Mathematics she enjoys the most, she says that although she is not very good at it, her favourite area is Combinatorics. She explains that although the concepts are simple and seem intuitive, the applications are very elegant. One such simple concept, she explains, is the Pigeonhole Principle which basically states that, “If n+1 pigeons occupy n pigeonholes then there is some pigeonhole with at least 2 pigeons”. Speaking about how her experience in Mathematics has shaped her, Nelushi states that “Although many students might think this is a waste of time and worry that they might miss other work at school, this is a very good investment for anyone who is interested in any kind of science”. She goes on to explain that attempting such problems has developed her analytical and critical thinking abilities, which has placed her a step ahead in studying science subjects at the Advanced Level.

Quite a few individuals have been of great assistance to Nelushi in her mathematics endeavour, including her first teacher, Mr. Nishantha, the teachers who trained her and the team in the earlier days, from the Ministry of Education and later on, from the Sri Lanka Olympiad Mathematics Foundation (SLOMF), Dr. Chanakya Wijeratne, Dr. Dayal Dharmasena, Dr. Kaushika De Silva and Rusiru Gambheera. All of them have been of guidance to her in her journey in Mathematics. Her family, too, has been a pillar of strength all these years, supporting her all throughout.

When asked about what advice she would give the youngsters aspiring to follow her footsteps, Nelushi says that the most important advice she would give is to not give up in Mathematics. She says that although one or many more of your approaches might not work when solving a problem, that shouldn’t discourage you, and that the important thing is to continuously keep trying. Through her own experience, Nelushi goes on to say that there is a significant gender gap at the IMO where less than 10% of participants are female, and from Sri Lanka only three participants have been female students, out of around 90 participants. She encourages girls to take up this challenge, and in her own words, “Don’t leave it just for the boys”. She also states that although Sri Lanka is yet to win a Silver medal, she believes that we are capable of winning one in the near future.