Mount Holyoke College Math Modeling team wins awards in NRMMC

Over the weekend of Sept. 21 and 22, Mount Holyoke’s Math Modeling team won several awards at the first annual Northeast Regional Math Modeling Challenge (NRMMC), at the University of Rhode Island (URI).    Math Modeling is a competition where teams representing their schools attempt to solve real world problems using math.  At the NRMMC, each team has 23 hours to develop and test a solution. In the 24th hour of the competition, the teams present their solutions to judges and other participants.

Mount Holyoke sent three teams, each with three students, to the competition. One team (comprised of Maria Sellanes ’15, co-captain Grace Barkhuff ’16 and Malosree Maitra ’16) won the competition, as well as the “People’s Choice” award for best presentation, voted for by the student participants. The other two Mount Holyoke teams won honorable mentions. UMass Dartmouth, Merrimack College, URI and Quinnipiac College also had representatives present at the tournament.

Even though the team won several awards, none of the students on the team are math majors. “Creativity is key,” explained Barkhuff.   The students also emphasized the critical thinking and liberal arts skills that the MHC teams brought to the competition.

In addition to the academic aspect of the competition, it also provided a valuable social opportunity for the students. “I had a great time! My energy was unexpected[ly] high for a 24 hour competition late at night,” explained Sellanes. “I think it was the fact that I was doing something I enjoyed and I loved my team members [who kept my energy high]. We got along great and supported each other.”  She added that although the competition was busy, the team made sure to take breaks.  “It was a lot of fun meeting other students. Everyone was super nice.  We laughed together and made jokes about our shared experiences,” Sellanes said.

Sellanes also expressed that the competition helped to solidify the role she wants math to play in her academic pursuits. “Doing well meant that I’m more certain of which direction I want to continue in with my mathematics studies. It made me realize how useful math can be outside of the classroom, which is good to realize while we’re still in college,” she said.

The team’s success at NRMMC, however, is only a stepping stone to their ultimate goal: participating in an international modeling competition, the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM).

Last year, the team attended this international challenge where  they competed against 5,636 other schools such as Smith College, Harvard University and MIT. One team won a Meritorious Winner award, and two received Successful Participant Awards.

Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and team Coach Dylan Shepardson explained the reasoning behind participating in the NRMMC competition: “We were interested in participating in the regional contest as preparation for this year’s international competition. When we got the invitation to participate from the organizers at URI, we jumped at the chance!”

Co-captain Fangyuan Hong ’16 agreed that participating in the regional competition was an important step in the team’s progress. “It provides us with an opportunity to identify our weaknesses and find ways to remedy and improve,” she said.