Left to right: (first row) Braden Close, Cameron Silverman, Jake Rhodes; Leo Shan, Daniel Soto, Antoni Deja; Nick Kozenieski, Ishan Patel, Juan Perez Mosquera; (second row) Zhengmao Zhang, Zoey Cao, Blue Pu; Xavier Gottlieb-Young, Madelyn Popp, Jada Stitchler.
The SIMIODE Challenge Using Differential Equations Modeling (SCUDEM) and the COMAP Mathematical/Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (MCM/ICM) are annual international mathematical modeling contests for teams of undergraduate students that the Department of Mathematics proudly sponsors. UF began participating in 2020 under the leadership of Tracy Stepien, and student participation and mentorship has expanded each year.
Over the course of 1 weekend or 3 weeks, students solve a real-world modeling problem and produce either a written report or video presentation. This year, problems included predicting Olympic medal counts, determining traffic patterns from a set of worn stairs, and quantifying the association of long-term accumulation of heavy metals with chocolate consumption.
Faculty mentors Tracy Stepien and Youngmin Park ran the training for these contests this academic year (2024–2025), assisted by graduate students Kyle Adams, Abhiram Hegade, and Hemaho Taboe.
More information about undergraduate modeling contests at UF can be found here.
2024 SCUDEM (Fall Modeling Contest)
27 UF undergraduate students participated in SCUDEM 2024, held October 19–November 12. A total of 9 teams participated, and 5 of our teams won the highest honor of “Outstanding.”
More information about SCUDEM can be found here.
2025 MCM/ICM (Spring Modeling Contest)
19 UF undergraduate students participated in MCM/ICM 2025, held January 23–27. A total of 7 teams participated.
One of our teams, consisting of Xavier Gottlieb-Young, Bryn Nurczyk, and Jada Sitchler, earned the Finalist designation plus the prestigious INFORMS Award.
The Finalist designation is the highest that a UF team has earned so far since we started competing in 2020 (in the top 2% out of 21,000 participating teams). Additionally, the INFORMS Award is awarded to only 6 teams (1 for each of the contest problems) by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences to the team whose modeling and analyses best exemplify the style and content reflected in its membership’s professional practice.
More information about the MCM/ICM contest may be found here.
Undergraduates Publish Article on SCUDEM in MAA’s Math Horizons
Two of our SCUDEM 2023 Outstanding winners, undergraduate math majors Aidan Bryant and Aryan Tiwari, published an article titled “SCUDEM Competition” in the April 2025 edition of Math Horizons, an undergraduate magazine of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).
They discuss their experience competing and earning top honors in the SIMIODE Challenge Using Differential Equations Modeling (SCUDEM) and give advice to future participants.
The article may be found here.