Fayetteville State University Mathematics Professor serves as a Judge for International Modeling Contest

Dr. Zhenlu Cui, Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Fayetteville State University, has accepted an invitation to serve as a judge for 2020 Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)/Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).

MCM/ICM is an international contest for undergraduate students and a multi-day mathematics competition held annually by The Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP) and sponsored by Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), National Security Agency (NSA), American Mathematical Society (AMS), The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS.

It is designed to develop and advance interdisciplinary problem-solving skills, as well as, competence in written communication. Each year, it attracts around 1500 international teams of three undergraduates and one advisor from over 900 institutions around the world to compete to produce original mathematical papers in response to an interdisciplinary modeling problem. Teams are given 96 hours  to research and submit papers.

The International COMAP Scholarship Award will be awarded to the four top MCM/ICM teams from any of the participating countries; $9000 being split among the team members and $1000 to the school represented. Awards will be announced on or before April 30th.

Dr. Cui's research lies in applied and computational mathematics focusing on developing  multiscale models and computational methods to study dynamics and rheology of soft matter including: liquid crystals, nano-composites, bacterial suspensions, and cytoskeleton and its extracts, etc. His models have been used by physicists and biologists to test and interpret their experimental phenomena.