Midwest Region Silver Medal Winner
“Closure Properties of D2p in Finite Groups”
For her project, Po-Ling Loh studied a new mathematics problem about closed embeddings of finite groups. The notion of “closure” has to do with mappings of one group into another. In addition to being the foundation of many important branches of mathematics, group theory has key applications in chemistry, in modern theoretical physics, in coding theory, and in a host of other sciences. Potential future applications of Ms. Loh’s results include cryptography and Internet security. Ms. Loh’s mentor on her project was Professor Michael Aschbacher of the California Institute of Technology. Ms. Loh, a senior, is a member of the varsity math team, Knowledge Masters team, and National Honor Society. She is also a MathCounts student coach and a peer tutor. She loves to sing and won first place honors for vocal duet in the 2001 Wisconsin School Music Association Solo/Ensemble Festival. She also enjoys reading, writing, Frisbee, and cross-stitching. Ms. Loh’s favorite subjects are math, science, English, and history. She aspires to become a math teacher.
