Math teams win Meritorious awards in international contest

Two teams of Youngstown State University students won Meritorious awards at this year’s Mathematical Contest in Modeling, placing in the top 9 percent of nearly 9,000 teams worldwide.

In all, YSU had six teams and 18 students participate in the contest.

“I am so impressed by the outstanding performance of our students and their eagerness to use mathematics to solve challenging real-world problems,” said Angela Spalsbury, chair of the YSU Mathematics and Statistics Department. “We are very proud of our students and faculty that help prepare them.”

In the contest, held by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications, teams of three students have 96 hours to develop a model, create a solution, and submit a written report for one of three problems. This year, the problems were: (A) “Managing the Zambezi River”, (B) “Merge After Toll” or (C) “Cooperate and Navigate.”

Two teams earned Meritorious honors:

• Jenna Wise of Hubbard, Thomas Stoner of Hubbard and Luke Nappi of Columbiana, who worked on problem B and were advised by George Yates, received the distinction of Meritorious for their submission titled “Analyzing the Factors That Affect Merging After Toll”.
• Zack While of Austintown, Natalie Halavick of Vienna and Joseph Miller of Vienna, who worked on Problem C and also were advised by Yates, also received the distinction of Meritorious for their submission titled “Not the Hard Dam Problem but a Damn-Hard Problem”.

Two teams earned Honorable Mention awards, placing them in the top half of all submissions:

• Joe Wilaj of Struthers, Daniel Belinky of Boardman and Devon Rambo of Youngstown worked on Problem B and were advised by Yates, received Honorable Mention for their paper titled “For Whom the Lane Tolls”.
• John Gaboriault-Whitcomb of Burke, Va., Kathryn Platt of Boardman and Kenneth Diogo of Virginia Beach, Va., were advised by Prieto Langarica and received the distinction of Honorable Mention for their submission titled “Increasing Throughput on Roadway Toll Plazas”.

Two other teams received the distinction of Successful Participant:

• Andrew Asher of New Middletown, Nicholas Scoumis of Gibsonia, Pa., and Jon-Michael Koutsourais of Poland, Ohio, were advised by Thomas Madsen and received the distinction of Successful Participant for their submission titled “Directed Merging”.
• Uyen Vuong of Vietnam, Theoni Kasamias of Youngstown and Kendall Orris of Saxonburg, Pa., were advised by Langarica and received the distinction of Successful Participant for their submission titled “An Ongoing Problem: Merging Area”.

For information about the contest, visit COMAP online.