Twelve USVAMO Winners, including four Chinese Americans were honored in Washington, D.C. on June 23-24 at
ceremonies sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and presented by the Akamai Foundation. After
a rigorous summer training program at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, six of the twelve will be selected as
the United States team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) to be held on July 19-30 in Glasgow,
Scotland. The IMO will attract 500 of the most talented mathematics students from more than 80 countries.
On the first weekend in May, 326 of the best mathematics students in the nation competed in the United States
Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO). This extraordinary group of mathematics students spent nine hours on two successive
afternoons solving six very challenging problems. All of them were invited to take the USAMO exam at MIT, and 204 made
the trip to Cambridge, MA. The remaining 122 students who were unable to travel to MIT took the exam at their home
schools. The students competing in the USAMO outscored more than 238,000 students nationwide in grades 7-12 on a
series of challenging exams. Each USAMO participant had already survived two challenging preliminary examinations: the
American Mathematics Competition held in February 2002 and the American Invitational Mathematics Exam held in March
and April. The 204 students who were able to participate together in the USAMO at MIT were the guests of the Akamai
Foundation and the Mathematical Association of America. The American Mathematics Competition is a program of the
MAA and is presented by the Akamai Foundation.Of the 326 USAMO participants, the top twelve were named USAMO
Winners. Thus, only one in 20,000 of the original group made it into the Winners' circle. Two of the Winners are young
women, and one of them tied four men for first place. The five first place Winners had perfect scores! The six problems are
regarded as quite difficult, to the point that most professional mathematicians find them challenging.
While in Cambridge, the USAMO participants, in addition to solving tough mathematical problems, also enjoyed several
other activities. They were treated to stimulating lectures, good food, impromptu piano concerts by participants, rousing
card games and chess matches in the lobby of their hotel, and conversations with other students from around the United
States who really like math. Careful listening revealed that not all conversations were about mathematics.On the first day of
the USAMO, Dr. Tom Leighton, founder and chief scientist of Akamai Technologies, talked on the causes of congestion on
the Internet and the mathematical algorithms that help eliminate that congestion. That evening Akamai Technologies hosted
a picnic for the participants on the grounds of Akamai corporate headquarters, where they were greeted by Paul Sagan,
President of Akamai, and Dr. Leighton. Picnic goers enjoyed good music and food, tours of Akamai's network operations
center, and Frisbee on the lawn.
Professor Ron Graham, President-elect of the MAA, spoke on the second day about outstanding problems in mathematics
which are motivated by computing but probably won't be solved by computation. Following his talk, MIT rolled out the red
carpet for the USAMO participants, providing a special tour of the MIT campus and a picnic lunch hosted by the
Department of Mathematics.
Following two all-night grading sessions by a team of mathematicians, the twelve winners were announced Sunday morning,
May 5. They are:
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Daniel Kane, 16, West High School Madison, Wisconsin
Ricky Liu, 17, Newton South High School, Newton Centre, Massachusetts
Tiankai Liu, 16, Phillips Exeter, New Hampshire
Ru Loh, 17, James Madison Memorial High School, Madison, wisconsin
Inna Zakharevich, 18, Henry M. Gunn High School, Palo Alto, California
DDITIONAL WINNERS
Steve Byrnes, 17, Roxbury Latin School, West Roxbury, Massachusetts
Michael Hamburg, 17, Saint Joseph High School, South Bend, Indiana
Neil Herriot, 17, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California
nders Kaseorg, 15, Charlotte Home Educators Association, Charlotte, North Carolina
Alison Miller, 15, Home Educators Enrichment Group, Niskayuna, New York
Gregory Price, 18, Thomas Jefferson High School of Science & Technology, Alexandria, Virginia
Tong-ke Xue (Alex), 16, Hamilton High School, Chandler, Arizona