Alexandria Students Place Second, Win $15K in Scholarship Prizes at New York Finals of M3 Challenge
ALEXANDRIA, VA-Three weeks ago, The Zebra Press reported on a group of students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHS) who were selected as finalists for the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge). That selection made them eligible for $20K in scholarship prizes.
In New York City on April 29, Rishabh Chhabra, Om Gole, Rishabh Prabhu, Laura Zhang, and Victoria Zhang placed second in the contest, taking home $15,000. The winners are from Phillips Academy, based in Andover MA.
“What sets M3 Challenge apart from other math competitions is that it uniquely requires students to use math modeling as a process to represent, analyze, make predictions and provide insight into current phenomena,” said Dr. Karen Bliss, Senior Manager of Education and Outreach at SIAM. “We pose big problems about real issues that many students may not know much about. They need to research, quantify the parameters, organize data, and use skills they’ve learned in math class but may have never related to something real.”
The M3 Challenge is a program of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, headquartered in Philadelphia. It is sponsored by MathWorks, and began in 2005. It highlights the importance of math in daily life.
The judging panel for the final included professional mathematiciains.
Thousands of students from the US and UK participate in the M3 Challenge each year. Only six percent of entrants were given scholarship prizes.
