BETHLEHEM, Pa., May 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On May 31st and June 1st, the Lehigh Valley American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) program will compete in the ARML National Championship, the premier team competition for advanced national math. The 2024 event will be hosted at four different locations: Penn State University, The University of Iowa, The University of Alabama at Huntsville and the University of Nevada Reno. The Lehigh Valley teams will compete from the Penn State campus.
The ARML National Championship consists of 4 main sessions: a ten-question, 20-minute team challenge round, a team power round, the individual sessions consisting of five two-question rounds, and the team relay session. There is an additional tie-breaker round and the top performing students in the individual round can earn up to $1,500 in prizes as well as national awards.
Don Davis, an esteemed professor of Mathematics at Lehigh Valley University for 50 years, founded the program in 1993. 30 years later, the Lehigh Valley program not only includes participants from Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, but greater Philadelphia, as well as participants from Delaware and New Jersey.
“There are two things that remain important to me after all this time and winning is not necessarily one of them,” said Davis. “It’s important for me that we do the Lehigh name proud. I’ve spent my entire career dedicated to the school. But even more than that, it’s rewarding for me to see the kids get so enthusiastic about solving math problems, whether it’s for candy bars during practice or during the actual competition.”
The 2024 Lehigh Valley program will be represented by 66 participants broken into four teams of 15, with 6 alternate participants. The team, which will take two buses from Lehigh to Penn State on the afternoon of the 31st, before returning on the evening of the first, is sponsored by Bucks County resident and Bullpen Capital founder Paul Martino and his wife Aarati, along with Lehigh University and Google, who have been the team’s lead sponsors for 15 years.
“I’ve known Professor Davis since I was in 8th grade and my mom helped me locate him as mentor for my science fair project,” said Martino. “He helped me build and maintain my enthusiasm for math and science, which I’ve dedicated my entire adult career to, and I’m happy to help him pass that enthusiasm on to the next generation of mathematicians, doctors, scientists and technologists.”
While Davis will retire from Lehigh University at the end of this semester, he plans to remain involved with the Lehigh Valley ARML program as its coach and as a mentor to students. He has been provided with significant support throughout the years by Ken Monks, professor of Mathematics at Scranton University, and says that there is a succession plan in place for Lehigh University colleagues to eventually take over the teams.
To learn more about the Lehigh Valley Program, please visit https://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/arml.html.
About the Lehigh Valley American Regions Mathematics League Program
The Lehigh Valley ARML program was founded by Don Davis, professor of Mathematics at Lehigh University, in 1993. In the 30 years since, the team has become nationally recognized and is regularly one of the top performing teams in the country. The team has won National Championships in 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2011, and finished as runner-up in 2007, 2012, 2022, and 2023.
About Paul and Aarati Martino
Paul and Aarati Martino are Bucks County residents based in Doylestown. Paul is the founder of Bullpen Capital a post-seed stage venture capital firm that invests in a broad spectrum of technology companies. Some of Bullpen Capital’s prominent investments include FanDuel, Grove Collaborative, WAG and PAPER. Aarati Martino has spent her entire career in the technology industry and holds engineering degrees from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has spent more than two decades in a prominent position with Google and teaches the “Google Magic” enrichment program for the Central Bucks School District. Together, the Martino’s are passionate about growing STEAM education in Bucks County and throughout Pennsylvania.
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