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AMS Honors Pre-College Students with Menger Awards

The American Mathematical Society presented the 2023 Karl Menger Awards at the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (Regeneron ISEF) on May 17, 2023, in Dallas, TX.

Awardees were high-school students who earned a slot at the Regeneron ISEF by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state, or national science fair. In addition to a cash prize or certificate, each winner also received a booklet about Menger and a one-year membership to the AMS.

Nicholas Hagedorn of Princeton High School, Princeton, NJ, received the first award of $2,000 for Strict Inequalities for the n-Crossing Number.

Second awards ($1,000): Nikola Gyulev, Model High School of Mathematics “Akademik Kiril Popov,” Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Proof of the Complete Presence of a Modulo 4 Bias for the Semiprimes; and Jeffrey Xu, Montgomery High School, Skillman, NJ, Extending the Vieta-Newton Theorem

Third awards ($500): Stefan Gaydarov, Model High School of Mathematics “Akademik Kiril Popov,” The Shape of Polynomial Map ; Joseph Vulakh, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Lexington, KY, Hereditary Atomicity and ACCP in Monoids and Integral Domains; Meryl Zhang, R. C. Clark High School, Plano, TX, The Easiest Hard Problem: A Heuristic Solution to the Two-Way Partitioning Problem Using Probabilistic Algorithms; and Sophie Zhu, Williamsville East High School, East Amherst, NY, Pointed Fusion Categories Over Non-Algebraically Closed Fields

Certificates of Honorable Mention: Joseph Crachiola, Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy, Saginaw, MI, Creating and Assessing a Tool to Organize Graphs Using Hooke’s Law; Camille Duma, Vanguard High School, Ocala, FL, Application of Michaelis-Menten Rational Function Models, Parametric Calculations, and Differential Equations to Determine the Most Influential Factor on Histamine Levels; Yunjia Quan, Charlotte Country Day School, Charlotte, NC, Improving Bitcoin’s Post-Quantum Transaction Efficiency With a Novel Lattice-Based Aggregate Signature Scheme Based on CRYSTALS-Dilithium and a STARK Protocol; Rich Wang, William P. Clements High School, Sugar Land, TX, Ending States of a Special Variant of the Chip-Firing Algorithm; and Andrew Zhang, Wayzata High School, Plymouth, MN, Extremal Problems on the Steiner k-Distance and the Steiner k-Wiener Index.

AMS participation in the Regeneron ISEF is supported in part by the Karl Menger Fund, which was established by the family of the late Austrian mathematician, who died in 1985. In his six-decade career, Menger published 234 papers, 65 of them before the age of 30.

AMS Communications

AMS Awards International Undergraduates at 2023 MCM/ICM

Six teams of students received awards from the American Mathematical Society for their work in this year’s Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).

The MCM is an international contest for high-school students and college undergraduates that challenges teams to clarify, analyze, and propose solutions to open-ended problems. This year, 11,296 teams represented institutions from 21 countries and regions. The MCM winning institutions, team members, and faculty advisors are as follows:

Problem A: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China; Jiahao Luo, Tianyu Xiong, and Yuting Zhang; advised by Guoliang He

Problem B: Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications; Ruomu Li, Chenyu Ma, and Mengyuan Dai; advised by Dongxue Yan

Problem C: Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics; Jianjie Zheng, Weikang Li, and Yao Hou; advised by Lei Liu

An extension of the MCM, the ICM is designed to develop and advance interdisciplinary problem-solving skills as well as competence in written communication. This year, 9,563 teams represented institutions from 13 countries and regions. The ICM winning institutions, team members, and faculty advisors are as follows:

Problem D: Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Jingjia Peng, Xinyi Huang, and Xuejun Zhang; advised by Xiaofeng Gao

Problem E: Wuhan University; Zhaohong Liao, Enyang Li, and Yingyi Liu; advised by Zhi Gao

Problem F: Xidian University; Haiyan Zhang, Tao Zhuang, and Yunuo Lei; advised by Qingsong Zou

The Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) runs both contests, which are sponsored in part by the AMS.

COMAP

Deaths of AMS Members

Huzihiro Araki, of Japan, died on December 16, 2022. Born on July 28, 1932, he was a member of the Society for 33 years.

Bernice L. Auslander, of Chicago, Illinois, died in 2022. Born on November 21, 1930, she was a member of the Society for 57 years.

Hirsh G. Cohen, of Ossining, New York, died on December 20, 2020. Born on October 6, 1925, he was a member of the Society for 66 years.

Theodore T. Frankel, of La Jolla, California, died on August 5, 2017. Born on June 17, 1929, he was a member of the Society for 62 years.

Noel Germay, of Belgium, died on April 18, 2019. Born on April 14, 1925, he was a member of the Society for 45 years.

Urmila Pyakurel, of Nepal, died on April 12, 2023. Born on June 19, 1980, she was a member of the Society for 6 years.

Leon Albert Steinert, of San Jacinto, California, died on February 12, 2022. Born on May 2, 1930, he was a member of the Society for 35 years.

Anthony Zawadzki, of Cliffwood, New Jersey, died on March 25, 2022. Born on July 16, 1954, he was a member of the Society for 2 years.