What the contest is
The COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) presents teams of undergraduates with an open-ended engineering or scientific problem. Each team has four days to do three things at once: develop a mathematical model of the problem, implement and solve it, and communicate the work in a written report. The problems have no single fixed solution, so teams need engineering judgment to make useful recommendations.
The contest closely resembles the consulting work that I do now. Real R&D problems also arrive underspecified. They have to be modeled before they can be solved, and the results have to be written up so that someone other than the modeler can use them.
My MCM history
From 2004 to 2007, as an undergraduate at MIT, I competed on a team with Daniel Gulotta and Daniel Kane. Professor Martin Bazant advised our team. We earned top honors in all four of those years:
- 2007: SIAM Award for Outstanding Paper
- 2006: INFORMS Award for Outstanding Paper
- 2005: Outstanding Paper
- 2004: Ben Fusaro Award
From the contest to a consulting practice
Almost every habit that helped me in the MCM still helps me now. My clients do not bring me equations to solve. They bring me a partly defined engineering problem. They ask me to work out what the real question is, build a model that answers it, and explain the result well enough for someone else to make a decision. The MCM asks for the same steps, over a shorter time and with less at stake.
The contest is one of the clearest reasons that I do this kind of work today. Over those four years, I formed habits such as scoping a problem quickly, modeling at the right level of detail, and writing as I go. My job requires the same habits. After doing well in the contest, I had both the confidence and the early evidence that I could build a career in this work.
Resources for contestants
Coming soon. I plan to add more detailed advice and resources for current MCM contestants during the 2026–2027 school year. Check back then, or send me a note if you would like a reminder when the resources are ready.