March 23, 2000
CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES AND STUDENTS EXCEL IN THE INTERNATIONAL PUTNAM COMPETITION
OTTAWA, Ontario -- A team of three students from the University of Waterloo placed First in the 60th International William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Teams from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University also placed in the top ten in this prestigious contest.
A total of 431 Colleges and Universities participated in the Putnam Competition (written in December 1999). The five top universities are: 1. University of Waterloo, 2. Harvard University, 3. Duke University, 4. University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and 5. University of Chicago.
In alphabetical order, the universities placing 6th through 10th are: the University of British Columbia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Simon Fraser University and Stanford University.
The top six students are declared Putnam Fellows and three are from Canadian universities: Sabin Cautis (University of Waterloo), Derek Kisman (University of Waterloo) and Colin Percival (Simon Fraser University). The Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize for the top female score was won by Wai Ling Yee (University of Waterloo).
"Previous Putnam Fellows read like a `who's who' of North America's leading scientists and mathematicians and include Nobel and Fields Medal winners, for example Richard Feynman" said Richard Kane (University of Western Ontario), President of the Canadian Mathematical Society.
A total of 2900 undergraduate students wrote the Putnam Competition and seven of the top 24 students were from Canadian Universities: Sabin Cautis (University of Waterloo), Joel Erickson (University of British Columbia), Jesse Goodman (University of British Columbia), Joel Kamnitzer (University of Waterloo), Derek Kisman (University of Waterloo, Colin Percival (Simon Fraser University), and Wai Ling Yee (University of Waterloo).
The three students comprising the respective Canadian university teams and the coaches who placed in the top ten are:
University of Waterloo: Sabin Cautis, Donny Cheung, Derek Kisman (Coach: Christopher Small)
University of British Columbia: Joel Erickson, Jesse Goodman, Ho Sen Yung (Coaches: Lon Rosen and Rajiv Gupta)
Simon Fraser University: Arthur Kowalczyk, Tomasz Kowalczyk, Colin Percival (Coach: Brian Thomson)
"I was delighted to learn that the University of Waterloo has won the Putnam competition and of the strong performance by Canadian universities and students" said Dr. Christopher Small. "These results confirm the high regard that I and many others have for these outstanding students and it is gratifying to note that publicly funded Canadian institutions can compete so well with private American colleges with much larger endowments".
For further information contact:
Dr. Christopher Small
Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
University of Waterloo
Tel: 519-888-4567 ext. 5541
Email: cgsmall@uwaterloo.ca
or
Dr. Lon Rosen or Dr. Rajiv Gupta
Department of Mathematics
University of British Columbia
Tel: 604-822-2666
Email: rosen@math.ubc.ca
Email: gupta@math.ubc.ca
or
Dr. Brian Thomson
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Simon Fraser University
Tel: 604-291-4233
Email: thomson@sfu.ca
