Michael is a 10th grader at Minnetonka High School and the captain of its math team. He is the founder of the Math + Science Club, which won Science Bowl state, placed 4th nationally at Science Bowl nationals, and won MATHCOUNTS state in its first year. Michael was tied for first place in the 2023-2024 regular season high school math league with five perfect scores and also won the Math Bowl. He also has participated in many national math contests such as MATHCOUNTS nationals, ARML x3, CMIMC x2, SMT online x2, and BMT.

His favorite branch of math is number theory, and his favorite contest is the HMMT guts round, followed closely by Math Prize. He enjoys quiz bowl and earth science but is mediocre at both. His favorite Greek letter is σ, his favorite function is the natural logarithm, his favorite constant is 3, and his favorite nonstandard ice cream flavor is asparagus.

Kaining Zhang is a junior at the Blake School and captain of her school’s math team. This is her second year helping out with Math and Science Club. She loves teaching younger students and seeing her love for math reflected in their enthusiasm.

Her passion for math competitions began in 5th grade, when she won the local Math Olympiad for elementary schoolers. She went on to attend more math competitions in middle and high school, qualifying for AIME twice through the AMC 10. She is also a member of Minnesota’s all state math team and has been competing in national ARML on MN’s first team for the past two years. At the 2023-2024 MSHSML state tournament, she was one of the top ten to compete in Math Bowl.

Kaining’s love for math also extends beyond competitions, having graduated from UMTYMP, a 5-year math curriculum at the University of Minnesota. Since 9th grade, she has spent time every week during the school year, tutoring students under Breakthrough Minneapolis, a program partnering Minneapolis School District with the Blake School to offer math assistance to those who usually cannot afford to pay for their own tutors. This year, in addition to 1-on-1 tutoring, she is also joining Breakthrough’s teaching program, where she teaches math once a month to a classroom of students.

Outside of math, Kaining enjoys figure skating and cross-country skiing, and she is a ski captain of Blake’s varsity team. She plays viola with the GTCYS Symphony Orchestra. She also loves crocheting and solving sudoku variations.

Jessica Cao is a junior at Eden Prairie High School. She first began to really get into competitive math was in seventh grade. Since then, she has achieved honor roll in AMC 8, qualified for MathCounts State, achieved distinction in AMC 10, qualified for AIME, qualified for Math Prize for Girls, and won many Young Women AMC Awards. She is also a math team captain at EPHS. She has been a part of the Minnesota All-State math team since 9th grade and has competed with the team in various competitions such as ARML, SMT, and CMIMC.

Outside of math, Jessica enjoys figure skating, drawing, painting, playing with her dog, and eating. 

Evan Truong is a freshman at Minnetonka High School. He first became interested in math and science competitions in 7th grade, when he joined the Minnetonka Middle School East Math & Science Club; founded by Michael Luo. Evan placed  2nd in the 2024 regional Mathcounts competition and 6th place at the 2024 Minnesota Mathcounts State Competition. Evan also represented Minnesota at the 2024 National ARML competition.

Evan is excited to share his love for math and science with others! In 7th grade, his team became the Minnesota Science Bowl state champion and placed 4th at the National Science Bowl competition. The next year, he took over as co-captain of the Minnetonka Middle School East Math & Science Club and helped lead his team to another state championship and top 8 finish at the National finals. In the same year, his team earned 1st place in Minnesota in Mathcounts with 3 of the top 6 Mathcounts contestants being from the Minnetonka Middle School East Math & Science Club.  

In his free time, Evan enjoys playing the best instrument (viola), debating, and sleeping, with a little bit of tennis and snowboarding to get his heart rate up.  He is honored to be a part of the Math and Science Club team.

Yan-Ru Cao is a high school freshman with a passion for all things STEM, especially math and chemistry. He enjoys participating in various academic competitions, including math, science, linguistics, and quizbowl. His achievements include being on the AMC8 Distinguished Honor Roll, placing 5th individually and 1st as a team in State MathCounts; winning the State Science bowl Championship and placing 7th nationally, qualifying for the NACLO Invitational, and earning 4th place individually and 33rd as a team at the Quizbowl Nationals. Outside of academics, Yan-Ru loves studying and riding trains, reading comics, playing tennis, tending to his vegetable garden, cooking, and traveling.

Jacob Lee is a sophomore at Minnetonka High School. He is heavily involved in the math competitions community and has competed in math competitions such as the AMC Competition series, ARML, CMIMC, and SMT. He is also very interested in physics and has qualified for the USAPhO. Outside of math and physics he enjoys playing the viola, running, science bowl, volunteering, and skiing. 

Alex Ren is a freshman at Minnetonka High School. He became interested in STEM activities when he first joined the Minnetonka Middle School east Math & Science Club. In 7th grade, his team, lead by Michael Luo, took 4th place at the National Science Bowl. The following year, he & Evan co-captained the team to a 7th place finish at Nationals. That same year, the school won the 1st place team award at MATHCOUNTS State.

Alex particularly enjoys earth science, physics, and mathematics. He loves clouds (it isn't as boring as you'd think), glaciers, volcanoes, kinematics, and separable differential equations (as opposed to linear differential equations). He's keen on spreading knowledge about these various topics (especially clouds), and is excited to give lectures on them (especially clouds).

Outside of STEM activities, Alex enjoys debating (Lincoln-Douglas format), hanging out with his friends, reading, eating, his dog, & playing video games.