CU teams win in international math-modeling contest
Two University of Colorado Boulder undergraduate student teams have been named among the 10 top winners from a field of 3,697 teams that entered the international Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
Results of the 2012 contest were announced this month by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications. The contest took place at the students鈥 home institutions Feb. 9-13.
One of the two CU-Boulder teams designated as an 鈥渙utstanding winner鈥 was comprised of students Stephen Kissler of applied mathematics, Christopher Corey of electrical and computer engineering and Sean Wiese of computer science. This team also was awarded the MAA Award sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America.
The other 鈥渙utstanding winner鈥 from CU-Boulder was made up of students Christopher Aicher and Tracy Babb of applied mathematics, and Daniel Sutton of computer science. This team also was awarded the INFORMS Award sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
Anne Dougherty of CU-Boulder鈥檚 Department of Applied Mathematics served as faculty adviser to both teams.
According to the contest rules, the students had 96 hours to decide which of two problems to complete, research their problem, come up with a mathematical model, program a numerical model, and write a report. Both CU-Boulder teams chose to solve a problem related to scheduling camping for a series of rafters on a long river.
鈥淚t is amazing what they can come up with in just 96 hours,鈥 Dougherty said, noting that all six of the winning students are in the Engineering Honors Program.
鈥淐U has had remarkable success over the years in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling,鈥 she added. 鈥淪ince 2000, we鈥檝e had a total of 11 鈥渙utstanding鈥 papers. I don鈥檛 know of any other universities with this type of track record. It is a testament to the quality of our students and the strength of CU鈥檚 programs that we鈥檝e been so successful for so long.鈥
Only 9 percent of the teams entering the contest this year were from the United States. The others were from Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Malaysia, Palestine, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Official results are posted at .