The complete results for the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications' Mathematical Contest in Modeling have been posted, and once again, University of Delaware has placed a team in the top category worldwide. To provide some perspective on this achievement, close to 1700 teams competed from 12 nations. Of these, only 9 were placed in the top category, and one of these is from UD. More notable is that two of the students on our Outstanding team (Bob Liu and Zack Ulissi) from this year, competed last year and also earned the top rating. This is a rare achievement. In the contest, groups of three students spend four days working on an open question contributed by a panel of experts. The open questions are drawn from practical applications where the mathematical formulations are not yet established or well analyzed. Past examples have included analysis of fingerprints, classification of insect species, planning evacuations or optimizing passenger loading on aircraft. Students can use any inanimate resource to develop and analyze mathematical models to solve the problem. The students may choose from one of two questions. Question A asked students to develop a model for traffic circles. Question B asked students to analyze the impact of a nation switching from land-line telephone usage to cellular telephone usage.

For the second year in a row, UD fielded three teams and attracted students across many programs including mathematics, physics and engineering. Solution reports are scored by a distinguished panel of judges who sort the solutions into four categories Outstanding (top 1% worldwide), Meritorious (next 18% worldwide), Honorable Mention (next 18% worldwide) and Successful (remaining 63%). One team consisting of Jeff Bosco, Bob Liu and Zack Ulissi earned an Outstanding designation for Problem B. A second team consisting of Soham Gandhi, Dariusz Murakowski and Kyle Thomas earned a Successful designation for Problem B. A third team consisting of Brendon McCracken, Camilo Perez and Frank Shen worked on Problem A and also earned a Successful designation. The teams were advised by Prof. Rossi with the help of Prof. Pelesko. In my opinion, the work of all three teams was nothing less than spectacular.

The official press releases for Problem A and Problem B have been posted on the COMAP website.

Article created: April 13, 2009