Apr 24, 2008 - Claremont, Calif. - The results of the 2008 International Mathematical Modeling Contest were announced recently and HMC had another stellar performance with three teams earning the top honor of Outstanding (given to only 12 teams out of 1542 entries worldwide).

No other college or university had more than one team earning Outstanding recognition. One of the winning teams was further distinguished with the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Award—an award for distinguished writing. Other Outstanding teams included Harvard, Duke, Beijing University, University of Buffalo, and the University of Delaware.

The reports from all three outstanding teams will be published in the Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics and its Applications. Moreover, all seven teams received recognition with two teams earning Meritorious (top 13 percent) and two earning Honorable Mention (top 40 percent). This is an incredible showing for HMC and a testament to the strength of our core curriculum and academic program.

The MCM/ICM is analogous to an applied Putnam exam, in the form of a grueling-96 hour competition. As Ben Fusaro, creator of the contest in 1983, puts it: “Most problems that come up in business, government, or industry are solved by teams, are likely to take many hours, and would not be restricted to using only pencil and paper. Moreover, the answer must be presented to an executive who wants a clear, understandable response.”

Thus, during the contest, students work in teams of three and have 96 consecutive hours to develop a mathematical model and write a formal paper describing their work. The team’s papers are judged not only on their scientific and mathematical accuracy, but also on their clarity of exposition, insight and creativity.

This year’s problems concerned:

(A) The impact from the melting of the North Polar Ice Cap on the Florida coast line

(B) Developing Sudoku puzzles of varying difficulty (with metrics to define a difficulty level)

(C) Developing effective metrics for measuring and comparing the quality ofdifferent country’s health care systems

Here are the winning HMC teams:

Problem B – Outstanding Winner and MAA Prize:

Martin Hunt ‘08, Math/Computer Science
Christopher Pong ‘08, Engineering
George Tucker ‘08, Math/Computer Science

Problem B – Outstanding Winner:

Sara Fletcher ‘09, Mathematics
Fred Johnson ‘10, Mathematics
David Morrison ‘08, Mathematics

Problem C – Outstanding Winner:

Denis Aleshin ‘10, Computer Science/Mathematics
Bryce Lampe ‘10, Computer Science/Mathematics
Parousia Rockstroh ‘08, Mathematics

Problem B – Meritorious:

Richard Bowen ‘09, Mathematics
Kevin Oelze ‘09, Computer Science/Mathematics
Hendrik Orem ‘09, Mathematics

Problem C – Meritorious:

Asaf Bernstein ‘09 Mathematics/Economics
Jason Christiansen ‘09, Engineering
Devin Smith ‘09, Computer Science, Mathematics

Problem C – Honorable Mention:

Catherine Bradshaw ‘09, Mathematical Biology
Edwin Lei ‘09, Mathematics
Brian Stock ‘09, Mathematical Biology

Problem A – Honorable Mention:

Tracy Backes ‘09, Mathematics
Tia Sondjaja ‘09, Mathematics
Kenn Tevin ‘09, Mathematics

I’d like to thank Claire Connelly and Tim Buchheim for helping with the computational arrangements for the contest and making it so easy for our students to get up and running with their models.

Please join me in congratulating these Mudders for their excellent work!

For complete MCM/ICM results see:

http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/2008/results/

Story by Professor of Mathematics Jon Jacobsen, MCM coordinator