Math en Jeans 2026: Young Mathematicians Converge on San Francisco

Lycée Students Present Research at North America Conference in San Francisco

Math en Jeans 2026: Our Students Take on San Francisco

What does it feel like to think like a mathematician? Not to solve a problem from a textbook — but to sit with an open question, week after week, and work toward an answer that no one has written down yet? That is exactly what Math en Jeans offers, and this year, thirty-five Lycée students got to find out.

What Is Math en Jeans?

Founded in 1989, MATh.en.JEANS is a French association whose mission is to give young people the experience of mathematics the way researchers actually practice it. The principle is straightforward: small groups of middle and high school students work throughout the school year on open mathematical problems — challenging but within reach — proposed by professional researchers. The annual conference is the culmination of this work, where students present their findings in front of peers, teachers, and the researchers who proposed the topics, much like a real scientific congress. Crucially, the solution to each problem is not to be found in any book or on any website — students have to look for it themselves, with the support of their teacher and their researcher. 

A Year of Work, a Weekend of Presentations

At the Lycée, the program has been running for nearly a decade. This year, about thirty students from Gr 8 through senior year spent months working in small groups of two or three on problems submitted by affiliated researchers. Every other Tuesday at noon, they gathered for workshops led by math teacher Nicolas LEGATELOIS — building their arguments, testing their ideas, and learning what it means to pursue a problem with patience and rigor.

The culmination was the 2026 MEJ North America conference, held this year right here in San Francisco at The International School of San Francisco (International). Six French schools came together, bringing approximately 150 student researchers from across North America:

• International and the Lycée, San Francisco
• Lycée Français de Chicago
• Lycée Français de New York
• Lycée International of Los Angeles
• Collège Stanislas, Montréal

Three Days in San Francisco

The weekend began on Friday with a treasure hunt through Golden Gate Park — math puzzles woven into the city itself — giving students from six schools the chance to explore San Francisco and get to know one another before the work began. The afternoon was devoted to finalizing presentations.

Saturday and Sunday were the heart of the conference: student presentations alternating with lectures from partner researchers, with 25 Lycée students among those presenting their findings in 10 to 15-minute sessions. Saturday evening brought a well-earned pizza party followed by a dance.

More Than a Competition — a Community

Math en Jeans is not a competition. There are no rankings, no prizes, no winners. Mr. Legatelois put it simply:

"I am particularly proud of the quality of the work they have produced. The important thing is to enjoy doing math as a team and to experience the intellectual satisfaction of solving a complex problem, either partially or completely."

That spirit — of curiosity shared, of effort sustained, of a problem approached together — is what makes this program unlike anything else in the curriculum.

The workshops will be open again at the start of next school year to all students in Gr 8 through 12. We hope to see even more young researchers join the adventure.