Saturday, October 17, junior Brandon Sim competed as a semi-finalist in the Regional Presentations of the S.T. Yau High School Math Awards. The other semi-finalists were from Singapore, Maryland, Chicago, and San Jose.
Brandon's presentation was amazing (title: "Mathematical Medeling of Feedback Regulation In Multistage Cell Lineages"). The judges included mathematics professors from UCLA, USC, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Riverside. After Brandon's presentation they grilled him about the mathematics of his project. The judges all commented later how impressed they were with Brandon considering he is only a junior and all of the other competitors were older.
Brandon mentioned later that although he didn't win (he won $1000 as a semi-finalist), he met a lot of great people and got to work with a well-known professor of mathematical biology at UC Irvine. Brandon stated that it was a very valuable experience.