May 30, 2001–Three local students from Urbana High School (UHS) have been invited to participate in the American Regions Math League (ARML) as members of the Indiana state team. ARML is an annual national mathematics competition in which teams of 15 high school students represent their city, state, county, or school in competing amongst the best students from the United States and Canada.

This year, ARML will be held on June 2, 2001, and will occur simultaneously at three sites: The University of Iowa, The Pennsylvania State University, and San Jose State University. The event consists of Team, Power, Individual, and Relay rounds and usually takes place the first Saturday after Memorial Day. Wolfram Research has covered expenses for the UHS students to participate at the Iowa site.

The three students, Yana Malysheva, Luis Mendes, and Ho Young Whang, were asked to participate based upon their outstanding performance in other regional and statewide math competitions this year, specifically by organizers of the Rose-Hulman High School Mathematics Contest in which the UHS math team placed third overall. Young Whang and Malysheva, who are both recent UHS graduates, were also members of the UHS eight-person, Junior-Senior team that took second place in both the ICTM Regional and the ICTM State Math Contests.

Left to right: Barb Taub of Wolfram Research, UHS math teacher Mary Klein, Ho Young Whang, and Luis Mendes

“This is a nice chance for us to offer some local support that is in keeping with our corporate mission of promoting excellence in mathematics education,” says Barb Taub, Director of Human Resources for Wolfram Research. Wolfram Research previously sponsored Malysheva, who plans to study mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), at the USA Mathcamp in 1999.

While their mathematics capabilities are nothing short of exceptional, these students still have most of the same concerns as their peers. Young Whang, who says he likes math because “it’s simple and logical,” will be majoring in computer engineering at UIUC this fall. He is “some part excited” about being on his own and some part concerned about handling all of the “basic things parents do for you, like laundry.”

Although school will be letting out just days after ARML, Mendes, the youngest ARML participant, won’t be taking much of a break from studying. He will be attending summer school to work towards an early graduation like his older teammates, while in his free time playing a little soccer and doing “what everyone else does–watch television.”