Stevenson team wins national math contest

A team of Stevenson High School students won the top prize and $20,000 in scholarship cash Monday in a national math competition.

Stevenson juniors Albert Cao, Andrew Hwang, Deepak Moparthi, Joshua Yoon and Haoyang Yu claimed first place in the Moody's Mega Math Challenge held in New York.

Organized by the Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and sponsored by the Moody's Foundation, the contest spotlights the relevancy and power of mathematics in solving real-world issues. This year, students were challenged to recommend solutions for the future growth and sustainability of the U.S. National Park Service by using mathematical modeling.

The students studied the issue, collected data and uploaded solutions online.

"All of us were pretty new to math modeling, so (we) were really excited to get this opportunity to work together and collaborate for 14 hours," Joshua Yoon said in a news release. "We had so much fun and we are very honored and thankful for this."

The team was coached by Paul Kim, a math teacher at the Lincolnshire school.

In all, an estimated 5,100 students working in 1,100 teams competed for prizes.

Six teams of finalists, including the group from Stevenson, presented their findings at Moody's Corporation headquarters Monday in New York City. A judging panel of more than 220 professional mathematicians determined that the Stevenson students came up with the overall best solution.