A team of three Morningside College students recently received a “meritorious” designation in an international competition for their solution to a mathematics problem.

A team of three Morningside College students recently received a “meritorious” designation in an international competition for their solution to a mathematics problem.

The Morningside team consisted of Merle Bulbitz, a sophomore biology and math major from Burgwedel, Germany; Jared Jochum, a senior biology and chemistry major from Dakota Dunes, S.D.; and Alex Watkins, a senior math and philosophy major from Sioux City. The team’s meritorious designation placed them in the top 12 percent of more than 8,000 solutions submitted to the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).

The ICM takes place over a 96-hour period each spring. Teams choose one of three problems to solve and complete a paper detailing their solution. The contest, which is sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications, attracts submissions from college undergraduates around the world.