Mason students win MathWorks M³ national championship, earn $20,000 in scholarships
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Summary
A Mason team of five students won first place in the MathWorks Math Modeling (M³) Challenge and received $20,000 in scholarship awards; team members described the project and teamwork at the board meeting.
Five Mason High School students won the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge, finishing first among more than 790 entries and receiving $20,000 in scholarship awards to be split among team members.
Teacher Ben Brown and three team members present at the meeting described how the competition required 14 hours of concentrated work and presentation in front of a panel of modeling experts in New York City. The students said the problem required modeling indoor temperature changes and designing policy recommendations for equitable resource allocation for heat waves in Memphis, Tennessee.
Students Anish Iyer and Raymond Shio were noted as team members who previously competed; three students — Ramya Rajan, Vivian Tang and Minja (Majinga) Zhang — spoke to the board about how they combined complementary skills in science, policy and data modeling. Ben Brown said the top prize was $20,000, or $4,000 per student.
Board members congratulated the students and highlighted the prestige of the win and its reflection on the district’s STEM programs. The students said the competition was a confidence‑building experience and a demonstration of teamwork under pressure.
