Zionsville Students Compete in International Math Competition

For 14 straight hours in early March, a small group of Zionsville High School students came together to participate in an international online math competition. A combination of math smarts and creative thinking added up to a spot in the finals for the team, whose submission was selected as one of the best solutions to the escalating crises of extreme heat and power grid failures, which local and national governments are working to mitigate.

The students – Truman Greaves, Prabanjan Jayachandran, and Tianle Liang of Zionsville-based Zionsville High School – made up one of the nine finalist teams in MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge), a unique competition that drew more than 3,600 11th and 12th graders in the U.S. and sixth form students in the U.K. this year. The team's work underwent intense scrutiny by judges in the first two rounds of assessment, followed by the final competition in New York City on April 28 to present their findings to a panel of professional mathematicians for final validation.

Using mathematical modeling, students had to come up with solutions to real-world questions: How can we predict the indoor temperature of non-air-conditioned urban dwellings during a heat wave? How much demand should a power grid be prepared to handle during the summer months? Will this demand change over time? Can cities minimize the effects of a heat wave or a power grid failure?

Now in its 20th year, M3 Challenge is a program of Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and is sponsored by MathWorks. It spotlights applied mathematics as a powerful problem-solving tool and motivates students to consider further education and careers in applied math, computational and data sciences, and technical computing.

A total of 794 teams submitted papers detailing their recommendations. Roughly 55% of those submissions included technical computing to support and enhance their solutions, and those coding skills make them eligible for additional scholarship prizes.

“Heat waves are not just uncomfortable, they can be quite dangerous,” said Dr. Karen Bliss, Senior Manager of Education and Outreach at SIAM. “In many locations, air conditioning is not a luxury, but a necessity, since heat stress can exacerbate underlying illnesses in vulnerable populations.”

“Unfortunately, mass use of air conditioning puts a strain on the electrical grid and resulting power outages can be devastating,” Bliss explained. “Cities and rural areas alike will benefit from having plans in place for managing energy demands and caring for citizens who need support during heat waves.”

The team’s coach, mathematics teacher Dwight Moser, explained that “participating in M3 Challenge was an incredible opportunity for the Zionsville team to apply mathematical modeling to real-world problems. The time constraint offered a unique spin, and the topic was a nice surprise since the team has previously had a research interest in climate resilience and energy systems. It was a challenging yet rewarding process that reinforced why math is such a powerful tool for tackling global issues.”

Team member Tianle Liang said that M3 Challenge was a completely new experience, where his team was forced to perfect their collaboration and efficiency in tackling such a complex problem. “Our team came together less than a week before M3 Challenge weekend, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. During the first couple of hours, we worked to figure out an approach, but as we began defining our individual roles in addressing each aspect of the problem, we were able to generate solutions quickly. The most valuable lesson we learned was how to produce our best work under pressure.”

In addition to Zionsville High School, the other finalist teams hailed from schools in Durham, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Mason, Ohio; Oakton, Virginia; Rye, New York; Winter Park, Florida; and Winchester, Hampshire and Borehamwood, Hertfordshire in the U.K.

For more information about M3 Challenge, visit https://m3challenge.siam.org/the-challenge/.

To access this year’s challenge problem, visit https://m3challenge.siam.org/2025-problem/.

To see the full list of finalist, semi-finalist, and honorable mention teams, visit

https://m3challenge.siam.org/wp-content/uploads/M3_Winners_2025_pre_final_event.pdf.