UCI undergraduate students Wes Fuhrman (Physics), Max Gilula (Math) and Ken Heckeroth (Math) won Meritorious distinction for their submission in the 2011 Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM). The MCM is an international math contest which involves a team of up to three students working on a posed modeling problem over the course of a weekend. Wes, Max and Ken's submitted an outstanding paper outlining their solution to the problem of how to determine the best shape to build a snowboard ramp in order to maximize vertical air. The UCI team met with their advisors, Dr. Sarah Eichhorn and Dr. Arvind Baskaran, for two months leading up to the contest.
 
This year 2775 teams participated in the competition. The Meritorious distinction was given to the top 13% of the participating teams. This also put them in the top 10 of the participating US teams. For more information about MCM go to http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/.