The Mathematical Association of America
Maryland-District of Columbia-Virginia Section


Undergraduate Research Conference Awards

  • 2024
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Matt Gunn, Randolph-Macon College, Exploring Probabilities in Bingo and its Variations
      2. 2nd Place: Abigail Basener, Virginia Military Institute, Detecting AI-generated writings
      3. 3rd Place: Natalie Brownlowe, Towson University, Mobility and Crime in Baltimore City
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st Place: Brendan Killeen, David Mack, Matthew Zieg of Virginia Military Institute, Resource Availability and Sex Ratios of Sea Lamprey Populations
      2. 2nd Place: Aidan Chadha, Virginia Tech, CG-Kit: Code Generation Toolkit for Performant and Maintainable Variants of Source Code
      3. 3rd Place: David Clements, Sarah Liebenow, Han-Chun Liu of Virginia Military Institute Sports Momentum through the Lens of Tennis
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Roanoke College

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Hollins University

  • 2023
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Andre Mas, James Madison University, FFEM for Elliptic State Constrained Optimal Control Problems
      2. 2nd Place: Matthew Caulfield & Aidan Chadha, James Madison University Predicting the Jet Boundary of a Turbulent Coanda Wall Jet Using Experimental Test Results
      3. 3rd Place: James Ripple, St. Mary's College of Maryland The effects of grazing functions on mixotrophic plankton populations during seasonal blooms
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st Place: Brittney Johnson of Stevenson University
      2. 2nd Place: Valentina Paz-Soldan of James Madison University
      3. 3rd Place: Joseph Egbo, Cameron Fonville, Paul Mustian of Virginia Military Institute
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      James Madison University

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      St. Mary's College of Maryland.

  • 2022
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Gillian Carr, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Role of mixotrophic zooplankton in seasonally-forced plankton blooms
      2. 2nd Place: Emily Adams, Ajeya Dixon, Logan Lawson of Christopher Newport University and Norfolk State University, Mathematical Modeling of Oncolytic Virotherapy as a Cancer Treatment
      3. 3rd Place: Lily Kimble, Shenandoah University, Sphere Projection of the Sierpinski Triangle
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st Place: Yang Hsia, Seth Gibson, James Burns of Virginia Military Institute, Bitcoin or Gold?
      2. 2nd Place: Royce Lorson, Shenandoah University, Using the Coupon Collector Problem to Analyze ”Gacha” Games
      3. 3rd Place: Lana Casingal, Bretia Green of Christopher Newport University and Norfolk State University, Mathematical Modeling of the Diffusion of Innovation
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Gabriel Johnson, Max Tucker, and Griffin Lofft of Washington College

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Alyson Conover, Gillian Carr, and Joseph Daly of St. Mary's College of Maryland.

  • 2021
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Andrew Kappel, Shenandoah University, Using Baseball Sabermetrics to Predict Goal Scoring in Hockey
      2. 2nd Place: Paige Beidelman, University of Mary Washington, Game Chromatic Number on Segmented Caterpillars
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st Place: Nicole Stock, James Madison University, Higher Order Fourier Finite Element Methods for HodgeLaplacian Problems on Axisymmetric Domains
      2. 2nd Place: Lindsey Mercer, Andrew Ho, and Isaiah Weaver of Virginia Military Institute, Bees, Wasps, and Asian Giant Hornets, oh my!
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Anshu Sharma, Megan Gunn, and Devin Teri of Randolph Macon University

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      No Radical Dash held this year

  • 2020 No meeting

  • 2019
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Martha Hartt, Randolph-Macon College, A Proof of Bertrand's Postulate
      2. 2nd Place: Garrett Fowler, Salisbury University, Conjecture O Holds for Some Horospherical Varieties Of Picard Rank 1.
      3. 3rd Place: Ryan Rhoades, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Exploration of the Inverse Galois Problem Using SageMath
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st Place: Amy Vennos, Salisbury University, Cycle Structures for Finite Cellular Automata Generated Over Groups, Rings, and Fields
      2. 2nd Place: David Carter, Jacon Wentworth, Virginia Military Institute Louvre Evacuation Program
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Martha Hartt, Kirsten Tate, and Maria Cummings of Randolph Macon University

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Zachary Dorris, Lauren Thompson, Jenna Frick, and Billy Bekanich of Hood College

  • 2018
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Ian Miller, St. Mary's College of Maryland, A Combinatorial Argument in a Packing Problem
      2. 2nd Place: Spirit Karcher, Christopher Newport University, Prime Factors and Divisibility of Sums of Powers of Fibonacci Numbers
      3. 3rd Place: Andrew Tomassone, Brendan Armani, Andrew Levy; James Madison University; An Implementation & Analysis of the Singular Value Decomposition Applied to Image Compression
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st place: Demetra Protogyrou, VMI, Linear Programming for a VMI Scheudling regarding all STEM majors
      2. 2nd place: Taylor Samuels, Randolph College, Digital Model of First-Year Pre-Scheduling
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Randolph Macon University

    • Winning Radical Dash Teams
      1. 1st Place: Shenandoah University
      2. 2nd Place: Randolph Macon University
  • 2017
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Trevor Karn, United States Naval Academy, The Flag Counting Problem for Partition Lattices
      2. 2nd Place: Gerald de Jesus Roman-Gonzalez, Stevenson University A Mathematical Analysis of Languages
      3. 3rd Place: Amanda Shultz, Shenandoah University, Building an Automatic License Plate Reader Using Geometric Comparisons
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st place: Sophie Mancini, Unyoung Park, James Madison University, Singular Value Decomposition and its Applications
      2. 2nd place: Joshua McPherson, Hood College, To Infinity and Beyond: An Analysis of the Struggle to Approach Infinity
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Frostburg State University

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      James Madison University

  • 2016
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Ryan Poffenbarger, Virginia Military Institute, Hungarian Algorithm and Image Mosaicking
      2. 2nd Place: Tyler Hoffman, McDaniel College, Hausdorff Dimension of Generalized Fibonacci Word Fractals
      3. 3rd Place: Christopher Lloyd, University of Mary Washington, The Ko-Lee Key Exchange Protocol with Generalized Dihedral Groups
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st place: Madison Gamble and Blake Schildhauer, McDaniel College, Sums of Third Powers in Quaternion Rings
      2. 2nd place: Cassie Hartley, James Madison University, Analysis of a Metapopulation Model with an Allee Effect
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Chelsey Clement, Emily Marinucci, Samantha Mallie of Salisbury University

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Chelsey Clement, Emily Marinucci, Samantha Mallie of Salisbury University

  • 2015
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. 1st Place: Shuyan Zhan, Randolph-Macon College, China's Population & One-Child Policy
      2. 2nd Place: Hayley Harris, George Mason University, Prime Labelings of Generalized Petersen Graphs P(n,1)
      3. 3rd Place: Alexandra Jolly, Longwood University, Geometry and Billiards
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st place: Joseph Gills, Longwood University, Mean Curvature Zero Surfaces in Three-Dimensional Lie Groups
      2. 2nd place: Cassie Hartley, James Madison University, Analyzing Error Associated with Modeling a Swimming Worm
      3. 3rd Place: Zev Woodstock, James Madison University, Architectural Acoustic Oddities & Asymptotic Behavior of Repetition Pitch
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Sam Whitfield, Tyler Hoffman, Meg Protzman from McDaniel College

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Sam Whitfield, Tyler Hoffman, Meg Protzman, Amanda Owens from McDaniel College

  • 2014
    • Student Paper Awards (There were two first place papers this year.)
      1. 1st place: Jon Marino, Roanoke College, Integer Compositions Applied to the Probability Analysis of Blackjack and the Infinite Deck Assumption
      2. 1st place: Emily Hunt, JMU, A Matrix Population for Monarch Butterflies
      3. 2nd place: Justin Stine and David Price, St' Mary's College of Maryland, Modeling Traffic Flow with Overtaking
      4. 3rd place: Carson Maki, Hampden-Sydney College, Timbral Partial Orders
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. 1st place: Jeffrey Kopsick, JMU, Wiggling in a 3D Wonderland
      2. 2nd place: Nicolas Acton, JMU, The Coanda Effect and its Acoustic Applications
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Jeffrey Kane, Jeff Norton, and Meg Protzman from McDaniel College.

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Chris Broad, Ryan Sanford, and Nicolas Shields from the Catholic University of America

  • 2013
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Joshua Kaminsky, St Mary's College of Maryland, A Different Type of Polygon
      2. Traymon Beavers, James Madison University, Graphs from Beyond the Grave: A Self-Stabilizing Algorithm for Double Domination
      3. Michael Ladas, Montgomery College, Modelling the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. Kathy Dunning, Samim Manizade, and Ross Tavjar, Salisbury Univeresity, I Think, Therefore I Bake: Building a Better Brownie
    • Winning Jeopardy Team

      Jon Marino, Jared Meadows, and Reem Zeidah from Roanoke College.

    • Winning Radical Dash Team

      Jon Marino, Jared Meadows, Reem Zeidah, and Morgan Elston from Roanoke College.

  • 2011
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Kevin Doubleday, University of Mary Washington, Application of Markov Chains to Stock Trends
      2. Ryan Shifler, Salisbury University, Universal Groebner Bases of Circulant Polynomial Systems
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. Benjamin Sapp, McDaniel College, The Kimberling Shuffle: You Can't Do This With a Deck of Cards
      2. Kylie Turner, Virginia Military Institute, Epidemiological Models of Chicken Pox in the United States
    • Winning Jeopardy Team
      • Benjamin Sapp, Michael Donders, and Fenghao Wang from McDaniel College.
    • Radical Dash: At the first ever Radical Dash, an Amazing Race competition, we had over fifty students involved in a total of 15 teams!
      1. Charlotte Funnell, Casey Petroff, and Matt Hubler from American University.
      2. Benjamin Sapp, Michael Donders, and Fenghao Wang from McDaniel College.
  • 2010
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Yuri Calustro, Longwood University, Intersecting Cylinders at Arbitrary Angles
      2. Catherine Walsh, Salisbury University, The Dynamics of Finite Cellular Automata with Null Boundary Conditions
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. Yuri Calustro, Longwood University, Intersecting Cylinders at Arbitrary Angles
      2. Robert Kelvey, McDaniel College, To be, or not to be...Lucky
    • Winning Jeopardy team
      • Cory Colbert from Virginia Commonwealth, Stephen Hardy from McDaniel College, and Robert Kelvey from McDaniel College
    • COMAP recognition
      1. Cameron Auker, Nathan Parr, Douglas Vermilya, Hampden-Sydney College
      2. Yuri Calustro, Nikole Varhegyi, Longwood University
      3. Dennis Howell, Sara Miller, Patrick O'Neill, Towson University
  • 2009
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. William Ella, University of Mary Washington
      2. David Weirich, Virginia Wesleyan College
      3. Chelsea Allison and Arthur Hughes, Mount St. Mary's University
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. Brian Kim, Marriotts Ridge High School
      2. Alex Smith, Hampden-Sydney College
    • Winning Jeopardy team
      • Michael DeWitt, Nolan Skochdopole and Aashish Gadani of Clover Hill High School
    • COMAP recognition
      1. Toby Shearman and Patrick Lafond, Virginia Tech
      2. Michael DeWitt, Nolan Skochdopole and Aashish Gadani, Clover Hill High School
      3. Patrick O'Neil, Evan Menchini, and Will Frey, Virginia Tech
  • 2008
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Amy Winslow of Randolph-Macon College
      2. Deena Hannoun and Leslie Hindman of James Madison University
      3. Jamey Szalay of James Madison University
    • Student Poster Awards
      1. Danielle Shiley of Roanoke College
      2. Matthew Spencer of James Madison University
      3. Dan Boxer, Brent Kohler and Molly McHarg of James Madison University
    • Winning Jeopardy team:
      • Richard Hayden, Zachary Johnson and Nikole Widder-Varhegyi of Longwood University
    • COMAP recognition
      1. Jorge Bruno, Matthew DiGiosaffatte and Benjamin Leard of James Madison University
      2. Victoria Ellison and Jefferson Livermon of James Madison University
  • 2001
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Nancy Nichols and Tonya Kim, Randolph-Macon College - Can You Follow Our Train Of Thought? Analyzing The Effects Of A Railroad Crossing On Traffic Flow
      2. Adrien Treuille, Georgetown University - A Coloring Problem and Patrick Meade, College of William & Mary - Normal Matrices and Polar Decompositions in Indefinite Inner Products
    • Mathematical Modeling Competition
      • Problem A
        MERITORIOUS RATING:
        James Madison University. Team Members: Daniel Robinson, Florin Nedelciuc, and Justin Lacy
      • Problem B
        OUTSTANDING RATING:
        Governor's School (Richmond). Team Members: Jonathan Charlesworth, Finale Doshi, and Joseph Gonzalez
        MERITORIOUS RATING:
        James Madison University. Team Members: Robert Knapik, Timothy Myers, and Eugene Kitamura
        University of Richmond. Team Members: Tony Kirilusha, Jonathan Robbins, and Adam Weaver
  • 2000
    • Student Paper Awards
      1. Keith McCarron and Becci Torrey, American University - Continuous Motion of Displaced Coordinate Frames
      2. Thaddeus Selden and Neil Bridge, Randolph-Macon College - Interfering with Interference
      3. Nirit Sandman, George Washington University - An Exploration of a Type-B Tamari Poset
    • Mathematical Modeling Competition
      • Problem A
        OUTSTANDING RATING:
        Governor's School (Richmond). Advisor: Crista Hamilton. Team Members: Finale Doshi, Rebecca Lessem, David Mooney
      • Honorable Mention Teams
        James Madison University. Advisor: Caroline Smith
        Salisbury State University. Advisor: Steven M. Hetzler
      • Problem B
        MERITORIOUS RATING:
        University of Richmond. Advisor: Kathy W. Hoke
      • Honorable Mention Teams
        Governor's School (Richmond). Advisor: Crista Hamilton.
        Governor's School (Richmond). Advisor: John Barnes.
        Salisbury State University. Advisor: Michael Bardzell.
  • 1999
    • Prizes for Student Papers - Research Papers
      1. Symmetric Simple Map with Low MN-Perturbations, Tiffany Fisher (with Arun Verma and Alkesh Punjabi), Hampton University
      2. Interactive Web Activities, Tim Cavanaugh, St. Mary's College
      3. Bresenham's Circle Generator and the Dda Ellipse Generator as Compared to Kappel's Ellipse Generator, Raymond Mooring, Morgan State University and Modeling Suspension Bridge Oscillations Using a Picard Iteration Technique, Paul Dosart, James Madison University
    • Prizes for Student Papers - Expository Papers
      1. The Weibull Distribution for Reliability Analysis, Laura Schultz, Hood College
      2. Measure that Angle, Henry William Faxon, Bowie State University and Approximation Methods for Integro-differential Equations, Aren Knutsen, James Madison University
    • Prizes for Student Posters - Seniors
      1. A Combinatorial Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, Tonya Greene, Mary Baldwin College and Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher, Kathryn Vanney and Katie Myers, Mary Baldwin College
      2. Sauntering in the Rain, Lisa Black and Weiwei Pan, Mary Baldwin College
    • Prizes for Student Posters - Juniors
      1. Origami and Conic Sections Elizabeth Kiser and Christine McLean, Mary Baldwin College and Hasse Diagrams of Sets of Three and Four Elements Dan Winter, Salisbury State University
    • Meritorious teams in the 1999 Mathematical Contest in Modeling
      • Problem A
        • Governor's School (Richmond). Advisor: Crista Hamilton
        • Governor's School (Richmond). Advisor: Crista Hamilton
        • Virginia Western Community College. Advisor:Ruth Sherma
      • Problem B
        • Eastern Mennonite University. Advisor: John Horst
        • James Madison University. Advisor: James Sochacki
        • University of Richmond. Advisor: Kathy Hoke
      • Honorable Mention Teams
        • College of William and Mary. Advisor: Michael Trosset
        • Georgetown University. Advisor: Andy Vogt
        • Governor's School. Advisor: John Barnes
        • Thomas Jefferson High School. Advisor: John Dell
  • 1998
    • Student Paper Competition - Expository Talks
      1. Rebecca Torrey and Keith McCarron, American University: An Introduction to Fractal Geometry: It's Fractually Everywhere!
      2. Kendra Taylor, Hampton University: Useful Strategies in Mathematical Optimization Modeling
    • Student Paper Competition - Research Talks
      1. Jessica Lawson, Ronald Walsh, Christian Benjamin, John Kasprzak, and Wendy Utz, St. Mary's College: Synchronous Fireflies: a Discrete Mathematical Model and Navin Vembar, The George Washington University: Partitions of the Edge-Set of a Graph into Trees.
      2. Lincoln Haughton, Hampton University: Exploration of Chaos and Heart Rhythms
    • Student Paper Competition - Graduate Student Talks
      • Special recognition for two graduate student presentations: Shawn Bruce, Va. State University: Bicycle Tournament Square-Root Graphs and Thomas Fitzkee, George Washington University: Self-Similar Tilings
      Mathematical Modeling Competition
      • Five student teams from our Section were awarded Meritorious status for their solutions to this year's MCM problem: Mount Saint Mary's College, Salisbury State University, College of William and Mary, Loyola College, and Eastern Mennonite University.
      • Six other teams earned Honorable Mention: Eastern Mennonite University, Two teams from Loyola College, Georgetown University, Goucher College, and Thomas Jefferson High School.
    • Putnam Competition
      • Ronald Walker of the University of Richmond was the highest scorer in our Section this year.

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