🦫 Upstate NY Math Team Fall 2025 Newsletter

Oct 11, 2025

Upstate New York Math Team

Mathematical Problem Solving

Dear Upstate New York Math Team,

I’m Japheth Wood, one of the Upstate New York Math Team coaches. It seems like forever ago since this school year started, so I’m grateful to finally find time this weekend to write to you.

Our team is focused on gathering high school math students from all over Upstate New York for math problem solving and math contests. The first contest this year, the Big Red Math Competition, happens in two weeks at Cornell University. The last contest, ARML, is our main objective, and takes place at the end of May in State College, Pennsylvania. There are many opportunities for mathematical problem solving in between.

I have updates to share from our community, information about summer math programs, and a recommended book. We’ve had some challenges getting everything started, so please look for several volunteer opportunities (especially for our mathletes and parents) below. Help us move forward!

If you will be at the Big Red, please find me and say hello. I’m looking forward to gathering in person!

Sincerely,

Japheth

—

Japheth Wood is a coach for the Upstate New York Math Team and also a math professor at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Contests

Each year, our main contest focus is ARML, the American Regions Math League. Our ARML team is regionally defined - teammates are from all parts of New York State except Long Island, New York City, and Westchester County.

The first contest this year is the Cornell University Big Red Math Competition (CUBRMC) on Saturday, October 25. If you can gather together a team of 5 students from your school, we recommend it! We’ve formed one team of students from across Upstate NY, and would like to hear from you if you are interested in participating on an additional team. The registration deadline is very close, October 14. Please get in touch!

We recommend that every student take the AMC 10 or AMC 12 contests. Those are traditionally hosted at schools, so check in with your math teacher. When you apply to be on the Upstate New York ARML team, we will ask you for your AMC scores (if you have them).

We’ll mention below that some veteran Upstate New York Math Team members are organizing teams for the “spicier” contests like HMMT. We do not recommend those contests to new mathletes. If you’ve traveled with us to ARML, then you know what you’d be in for, so please get in touch if you are interested.

Accolades

A shout out to Mason Eyler (Upstate former team captain) and Brendan Caseria (Upstate former Problem Squad member) who were inaugural staff members at Camp Sierpinski this past summer.

Upstate student Eugene Fingerman deserves huge accolades for starting a math circle for local elementary schools in the Hudson Valley, where he is considering the local library as well. Eugene is also in the process of organizing a math team at his new school.

We’re enjoying seeing four students continue efforts by last year’s team captain Jacob Chung to organize experienced Upstate students into teams to compete in the “spicier” contests like HMMT. Jacob has gone off to college, and we’re now benefitting from the leadership efforts of Alex Kim '27, of Corning, Brian Sun '27, of the Albany Area Math Circle, Jason Lian '27, of the Albany Area Math Circle, and Tianze Qiu '28, of the Monroe County Math League.

Two of our team members Carol Li and Muling Lu were interviewed about their experiences at the 2025 ARML in the Amherst Bee: Local math team takes part in national competition.

Coach Finn Goehrig received the Staff Appreciation Award from The Gifted Math Program at the University of Buffalo. Congratulations, Finn!

Have you or someone you know accomplished something amazing and deserve to be recognized? Please send in your update to be featured here.

Read the Amherst Bee

Summer Math Programs

Did you attend a summer math program?

There is a lot developing with Summer Math Programs. We are partial to the ones that focus on math enrichment, rather than acceleration. I encourage you to learn more about summer math programs by signing up and attending BEAM founder Dan Zaharopol's talk this Wednesday, October 15. Dan’s invitation is below.

It is never too early to think about attending a summer math program. Here are two lists for you to review:

The Summer Math Program Consortium’s list: SMPC List
The Art of Problem Solving’s list: AoPS List

BEAM

I did participate in a summer math program when I was a high school student, and the spirit of mathematical discovery that I experienced there has always stayed with me. It was the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM), one of the longest running programs.

Watch the trailer of this soon-to-be released HCSSiM documentary!

—Japheth

The Evolving Summer Math Programs Ecosystem

You're invited to an online session, "The Evolving Summer Math Programs Ecosystem." In this session, you'll get to learn about the whole ecosystem of summer math programs, past, present, and future. You'll learn about how these programs change access to deep mathematical thinking and how we're working to expand that access, new collaborations to improve and grow our work, and how we're engaging the broader mathematical community. It's an exciting period of growth and we hope you'll join us to see what we're doing! The session is being run by the new Summer Math Programs Consortium, a collaboration between many different programs across the country.

The session takes place on Wednesday, October 15th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. If you can't make it, a Zoom recording will be shared. Sign up here!

Daniel Zaharopol (he/him/his)
CEO, The Art of Problem Solving Initiative, Inc.
Founder and Director, Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics

Website Update

If you’ve noticed that our website has been intermittent, it’s because we’re changing platforms. We’re seeking a web volunteer to help develop the site. Please get in touch if you have or are interested in developing your web skills!