The second round of the UNM-PNM Math Contest was held in the afternoon of February 8th, 2025. About 150 students from grades 6-12 (and even a few 4th and 5th graders) congregated in the SMLC Auditorium to take the three and half hour exam. That morning, Professor Po-Shen Loh from Carnegie Mellon University gave the Math Contest Public Lecture on "How To Thrive In the Age of AI" which was very well attended. While the students took the exam Professor Loh had a conversation with parents and teachers. The co-directors, professors Stephen Lau and Cristina Pereyra, graded all of the exams in excruciating detail and have announced the winners. These include 1st-5th place and honorable mentions per grade, and 1st-5th place and honorable mentions overall. They also include top performers per school. Students representing 26 different schools from Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Las Cruces, Deming, Black Rock, Los Alamos, Angel Fire, and Santa Fe, reached the second round. More than 70 students will be honored at an award ceremony on April 19, 2025 in the Student Union Building (SUB). Written solutions to the second-round exam problems have carefully documented many of the original solutions proposed by the student participants.
This year, Sean Choi, a high school student and two-time overall winner of the UNM-PNM Math Contest, joined the team as coach for student participants. To discuss problem solving skills and review solutions, he held in-person sessions in Albuquerque and Los Alamos, and also two online Zoom meetings. Three sessions in Fall Semester 2024 addressed the first round of the Contest, and a March 2025 session addressed the second round.
In continuation of the Contest, a tradition now nearly 60-years old, the co-directors gratefully acknowledge support from the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at UNM. We also are thankful to the various faculty, graduate and undergraduate students who volunteered to proctor the exam, as well as to our Department Administrator, Amy Hathaway, and our Accountant, Daniel Freeman, who helped us in uncountable ways.
