Calculus organization awards National High School Calculus Award

The award recognizes the academic achievements of outstanding high school calculus students.

The award comes from calculus.org, an organization based at the University of California at Davis, Wake Forest University and Williams College. Frank Morgan of Williams College will award Balakrishnan the prize on May 4 during a special ceremony at the 2002 American Math Olympiad in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Math teacher John A. Beaton and school principal Keith Williams nominated her.

Runners-up were Zachary John Abernathy (West Forsyth High School, Clemmons, N.C.); Brandon Batista (Monmouth Regional High School, Tinton Falls, N.J.); Siva Kalyan (Littlebrook Elementary School, Princeton, N.J.); April Tam (Miami Springs Senior High School, Miami Springs, Fla.). They will receive Scientific Notebook software donated by MacKichan Software.

In 1999, Balakrishnan presented a science fair project in which she developed conversion formulas for an elliptical coordinate system, generalizing the polar coordinate system. The project won fourth prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, Calif., in May 2001. She also has participated in numerous other activities, including the American Invitational Mathematics Examination and the United States Math Olympiad in 2000 and 2001, Canada/USA Math Camp during the summers of 1999 and 2000, and the Research Science Institute at MIT in 2001. She was also a Siemens-Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition Finalist, an Intel Science Talent Search Finalist, and a Grand Prize Winner of the USA Mathematical Talent Search.

For additional information, contact Hugh Howards, associate professor of mathematics at Wake Forest University at (336) 758-5352 or send e-mail to ecalculusaward@yahoo.com. Details about the award will also be posted at www.calculus.org.