West High School junior is runner-up at math competition

IOWA CITY — Junhee Lee, a junior at Iowa City West High School, won $6,000 in the math game 'Who Wants to Be a Mathematician,' held Saturday, Jan. 7, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta.

Lee finished in second place among 10 semifinalists, who were selected from more than 2,300 students nationwide based on their scores on a qualifying test administered by the game's technology sponsor, Maplesoft, using its online testing and assessment tool.

Of the $6,000 total, $3,000 goes to Lee and $3,000 goes to the math department at West High.

This is the second time Lee has participated in the contest. In January 2016, he traveled to Seattle for the competition as one of 10 semifinalists.

'It's a mix of a quiz show format, like 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' Lee said of the competition for a 2016 Gazette article. 'The more questions you get right, the better odds you have of winning. They're all mathematical questions.'

When he's not concentrating on math, Lee enjoys reading movie summaries on Wikipedia and playing trumpet.

This was the eighth national contest of 'Who Wants to Be a Mathematician.' The American Mathematical Society organizes the national game and regional games in different cities nationwide to reward good mathematics students. The game was part of the Joint Mathematics Meetings held in Atlanta Jan. 4-7.

More than 6,000 mathematicians attended the meeting.