AMC Michigan Coordinator Report

During the 2008-2009 academic year, 9,086 Michigan students participated in the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) -- 5,492 students from 68 schools in AMC8 and 3,594 students in AMC10/12. The total number of participants is about the same as last year. The number of participating schools for AMC8 has dropped from 80 to 68, but 12 more schools participated in AMC10/12, increased the number from 75 to 87. This is also reflected in the numbers of participating students in the corresponding competitions. None of these turbulences in numbers effected the AIME qualification of the student population (see below).

There were 19 Michigan AMC winners for the 2008-2009 academic year. Among them are two perfect scorers for AMC8 and four perfect scorers for AMC10B. The two middle school students who aced AMC8 are Hirsh Jain (ICAE, Indus Center for Academic Excellence) and Akhil Nistala (Novi Middle School). The four students who got the perfect score in AMC10B are Rolland He (Troy High School), Mason Liang (Troy High School), David Lu (Detroit Country Day School), and Allen Yuan (Detroit Country Day School). In 2009, 156 Michigan students qualified for the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination). All 17 of our AMC high school winners qualified for the USAMO (United States of America Mathematics Olympiad). Though the official MOSP data has not been released, to my knowledge, two among our USAMO qualifiers, David Lu (Detroit Country Day School) and Allen Yuan (Detroit Country Day School) qualified for MOSP, the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program. Among the five 2008 middle school Edith May Sliffe Award winners in Region 4 (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio), there are three Michigan teachers. They are: Tammy Gilbert (Boulan Park Middle School, Troy), Douglas Meyer (Smith Middle School, Troy), and Parikshita Nayak (ICAE, Lathrup Village). This year's winner for the Edyth May Sliffe Awards for Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching is still in the stage of nomination. Among the seven AMC senior winners this year, David Sherman (Wylie E Groves High School) and Nicholas Triantafillou (Saginaw Arts & Sciences Academy) joined University of Michigan; Willa Chen (Canton High School) joined Princeton University; Justin Brereton (Okemos High School), Alan Huang (Detroit Country Day School), and Andrew Jeanguenat (Detroit Country Day School) joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and James Scott (Rockford High School) joined California Institute of Technology. The AMC team winner of Michgan this year is the Detroit Country Day School Team (Beverly Hills) (for both AMC10/12A and AMC10/12B). The Huron High School Team (Ann Arbor) is the run-up for AMC10/12A and the ICAE Team (Troy) is the run-up for AMC10/12B.

Following our tradition of recognizing the achievements of the AMC winners, their teachers, and their parents, two celebrations were planned. The reception with the Governor was not possible due to the current economic situation of Michigan. Instead, the Governor graciously offered to issue the grand Governor's Certificates to each winner and in time to be distributed during the Awards. The Awards Ceremony was held on September 11th at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Oakland University, with Dr. Yvonne Lai presenting a lecture on "Musical Orbifolds". Dr. Yvonne Lai is currently a post-doctoral faculty member of the University of Michigan department of mathematics. She received her S.B. from M.I.T., and her Ph.D. from U.C. Davis, where she wrote a dissertation on geometric group theory and hyperbolic geometry. Dr. Lai presented the music interpretation of systematic constructions as in fashioning a circle out of the real line by gluing numbers together whenever they differ by an integer, creating a torus from the plane, and building a three-dimensional torus from three-space. She discussed how exactly the music and math correspond, and then, using other intuitive notions of musical symmetry (such as key changes), she built more intricate spaces and introduced the notion of an orbifold. Dr. Lai's talk was based on work by D. Tymoczko, a Professor of Music Theory of Princeton University.

These AMC celebration events are funded by the AMC, sponsored by the Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan, Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Oakland University, American Mathematical Society, Wolfram Research, and the Art of Problem Solving Foundation. Also we distributed awards to the winning teachers for the second year sponsored by one of our sponsors.

Please find the entire list of Michigan AMC winners in the AMC Awards booklet and Award Ceremony pictures here. This website will be moved to its permanent location at the Michigan Section MAA AMC Coordinator site soon.

Special thanks go to Dr. Gu (FangMing) of General Motors who kindly acted as the photographers for this year's AMC Awards Ceremony.