Math team places fifth against 431 Putnam competitors

A University team has placed fifth in the 1999 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, the Mathematical Association of America has announced. The team will receive $5,000, and each team member will receive $200. Chicago team members were Matthew Gealy, a third-year in mathematics, and Christopher Malon and Sergey Vasseliev, both fourth-years in mathematics. Gealy and Vasseliev also received honorable-mention recognition in the individual category.

The University of Waterloo team took first place, followed by Harvard University, Duke University, the University of Michigan and Chicago. A total of 2,900 students from 431 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada participated in the competition. There were teams from 346 institutions.

The competition began in 1938 to stimulate a healthy rivalry in mathematical studies in North-American institutions. The competition is named for William Lowell Putnam, a Harvard alumnus who advocated intellectual intercollegiate competition.