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M3 MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge

Modeler and writer, National modeling competition, 2023

ProblemFourteen hours to structure a real-world problem, build a defensible model, and write it up.
My roleTeam modeler and writer. MATLAB and analytical methods.
ResultTop 20% globally, the first time my school reached that level. Related paper published on SSRN.
MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge
RoleModeler and writer
ContextNational modeling competition
Dates2023
FieldQuantitative Modeling, Public Policy Analytics
SkillsMATLAB, Problem Structuring, Technical Writing, Data Analysis, Python, Publication

The problem

The M3 Challenge gives teams a real-world problem and a hard clock. You have to structure the question, find and clean data, build a coherent model, validate it, and write it up for judges who read hundreds of papers.

What we did

  • Rapid problem structuring and data analysis under time pressure, with MATLAB for the modeling
  • Our team placed in the top 20% of global participants, the first time my school reached that level

Publication

The modeling work fed a paper, Ride Like the Wind Without Getting Winded, published on SSRN in 2023. It builds a quantitative model of e-bike adoption and ranks the drivers of market penetration, then evaluates environmental and health outcomes as a function of adoption. At the time of posting it ranked in the top 10 downloads in three SSRN categories.