Simon Marais Competition 2019: Our high achievers
Published on the 02 June 2020
Several UNSW students performed very strongly in the 2019 Simon Marais Competition.
17 pairs and 28 individuals from UNSW competed in the annual competition in October, which attracted 971 competitors from universities across Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and South Korea.
In addition to prizes awarded by the competition, the School of Mathematics and Statistics awards prizes to the best performance by UNSW competitors. Four $1000 prizes are awarded by the School for the best individual female, best individual male, best pair and best female pair performances.
Allen Lu was our best overall UNSW entry, and he was awarded our Best Individual Male Award.
Wendy Ji won our Best Individual Female Award.
Juan Sebastian Avila Molina and Jiayi Li won our Best Pair Award.
Yingkun Huang and Chenyi Wang won our Best Female Pair Award.
Other high achievers in the competition from UNSW included Michael Cunanan and Zhan Wei (top quartile pair), Ezra Daniel Hui and Laeeque Jamdar (top quartile pair), and Raymond Li (top quartile individual).
The annual competition aims to encourage creative mathematical problem-solving among undergraduate students, identify talented students across the Asia-Pacific region, forge links between academics in the region, and promote healthy competition among students and universities.
Dr Simon Marais was a South African-born physicist who became a prominent contrarian asset manager in South Africa and later Australia. He maintained a life-long passionate interest in mathematics and mathematical problem solving after completing a PhD in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University in 1991.
Congratulations to our prize winners and high performers! And a very big thank you to Jonathan Kress, who is our local organiser for the competition.