Amy Langville facts for kids
Amy Nicole Langville, born in 1975, is an American mathematician. She was also a fantastic basketball player in high school and college. Her main work involves creating and understanding ranking systems. These systems help decide who or what is "number one." For example, she studies how Google ranks websites. She even uses her math skills to help with basketball predictions! Today, she teaches math at the College of Charleston.
Early Life and Sports Achievements
Amy Langville grew up in Arnold, Maryland. She was a star basketball player at Archbishop Spalding High School. She was even named the top player on the Academic All-Maryland women's basketball team. Besides basketball, she also played volleyball. She was very good at her studies too. She was president of the National Honor Society and graduated at the very top of her class. Maryland recognized her as a Distinguished Scholar.
Many colleges wanted her to play basketball for them. She chose to go to Mount St. Mary's College on a full basketball scholarship. She played for the Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers women's basketball team. In 1995–1996, she was named the Northeast Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year.
Education and Career in Mathematics
Amy Langville earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Mount St. Mary's in 1997. She was the top student in her graduating class. She was also named to the 1997 GTE Academic All-American women's basketball first team. This shows she was excellent at both sports and academics!
She then went on to get her Ph.D. in operations research from North Carolina State University in 2002. Operations research is a field of math that uses advanced methods to help make better decisions. After her Ph.D., she continued her research at North Carolina State University. In 2005, she joined the faculty at the College of Charleston. She became a full professor there in 2015.
Books on Ranking Systems
Amy Langville has written two important books about ranking systems with her co-author Carl D. Meyer. Both books were published by the Princeton University Press.
Her first book, Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings, came out in 2006. This book explains how search engines like Google use the PageRank method to decide which web pages show up first when you search for something online.
Her second book, Who's #1? — The Science of Rating and Ranking, was published in 2012. This book looks at ranking systems in a broader way. It explores how we rank everything from sports teams to movies. The Mathematical Association of America even suggested this book for college math libraries.
