Recently, the 37th American International Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) results were announced.StudentsfromNEFU competed with 77,594 students from the United States, the United Kingdom, China and other countriesand achieved 1 Finalist Designation, 9Meritorious Winners and 32Honorable Mentions,which is thebest result in recent years.

The Mathematical Contest In Modeling (MCM) (since 1985)and Interdisciplinary Contest In Modeling (ICM) (since 2000),organized by the American Association for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) and supported by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) and many other organizations, isthe only international mathematical modeling competition. It isalso the most influential mathematical modeling competition in the world and theoriginator of all kinds of modeling competitions today. Since 1985, there have been 37 MCM sessions and 23 ICM sessions, attracting the participation of more than 1,000 universities from more than 20 countries around the world. The questionsof the contestinvolve many fields such as economics, management, environment, resources, ecology, medicine, safety and others.

The contestrequires three people in ateam to complete the entire workincluding modeling, solution, verification, and paper writing on the assignedquestion within four days, whichtests the ability of the contestants tostudy and solveproblems andshowstheir spirit of teamwork. MCM/ICM places a strong emphasis on originality of research and solutions, teamwork, communication and the soundness of results.The contest focuses on communication. The teams cancollect data,conduct research andinvestigations byusing computer, software and the Internet, but cannotdiscuss thequestionswith anyone outsidethe team(includingtheir advisors). Each teamshould complete a scientific paper that uses mathematical modeling methods to solve a practical problem. The main criteria for the contest are the rationality of the hypothesis, the creativity of the modeling, the correctness of the results and the clarity of the text. There are 6 questions in this year’scontest, with3 questionsin MCM,among which QuestionA isacontinuous type,QuestionB a discrete type, andQuestionC a data type; 3 questions in ICM,among which QuestionD isonoperations research and network science,QuestionEon environmental science, andQuestionFon policy. A total of 26,112 teams representing 1,576 colleges and universities, participated inthecompetition. Many famous research institutions and enterprises, both domestic and international, regard it as an important basis to measure the quality and level of students.

Under the unified deployment of the College of Science, the Department of Mathematics selectedsomebackbone teachers as instructors,and the participating teams fromwinners of the National Mathematical Contest in Modeling for College Students in the past years. The teams were givenpatient and meticulous guidanceand receivedrepeated training before the competition. Since the American Mathematical Contest in Modeling is held around the Spring Festival holiday every year, the teachers and students participating in the training and competition gave up theirspare time and overcome many difficulties to achieve excellent results.