Ward Melville Senior Is Also Math Major At Stony Brook University

Press release from the Three Village Central School District:

Nov. 13, 2021

Ward Melville High School senior Rahul Ram is not only a dedicated high school scholar, but he is simultaneously working his way to earn a minor and major in pure mathematics at Stony Brook University.

A path he began in summer 2020 as a junior, Rahul has currently completed most of the requirements for the dual graduate level work. Having volunteered at Stony Brook University Hospital during the past several years and been enrolled in the school’s enrichment classes for the past seven years, Rahul quickly develop a personal connection with the university and a thirst for the opportunities accessible. On his path to the pure math major and minor, he taken four collegiate level courses at the university, two classes through the ACE program with Story Brook, as well as successfully completed Advanced Placement Calculus and Statistics courses at Ward Melville High School.

An early contributing factor to his advance math studies was Rahul’s ability to skip from high school Geometry to AP Calculus BC between ninth and 10th grade. This was accomplished over the course of a month during summer vacation and by scoring a perfect score on the advanced theory exam and 99% on the Algebra II Regents.

In addition to his course work, Rahul has been engaged in a number of research projects. Including studying logic under math professor Oleg Viro, where he learned about the area of topology, which works with geometry to transform one shape into another. For example, a 3D map into a flat object. He has also worked with Benjamin Krause from Princeton University who is currently in London on graduate level Fourier analysis studies.

Rahul was awarded silver ranking in the USA Computing Olympiad, a perfect score on the math PSAT and mathematics level 2 SAT subject test. He is also a member of the Ward Melville High School math team.

“In our 50 plus year history, I don’t believe we have ever had a current student go to this level of mathematics course work while still maintaining a full course load at Ward Melville,” said Ward Melville High School Principal William Bernhard, who is also a professor in the applied mathematics department at the university.

Upon graduation, Rahul hopes to continue to study pure mathematics or astrophysics at the college level.

This press release was produced by the Three Village Central School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.