Biography
I, Sergey S. Sarkisov, have been, and now am, involved in numerous academic activities. Some of my achievements have been recognized. In my room stand 46 trophies (though quality, not quantity is most important) which include: 1st place on The University of Alabama Physics Contest, a 1st place “gold” medal in State Science Olympiads, 1st place in City and State (ACTE) State Programming, 11 math trophies/medals including 3 1st places in state-level contests, and 1st places in the Spanish State Convention for grammar and poetry recital. I also hold a number of certificates (more that 80) which include: winner of the Design and Ad Contest for Huntsville Times; Outstanding Art Student Award; many science /math awards for being “Most Outstanding Student”, ranking in top 5% on state tournaments, performing well on national tournaments like Mandelbrot, ARML, AMC, and AIME, and for being honored by the Huntsville City Board of Education; Honor Roll Awards including 2 awards for the largest GPA in 7th and 8th grades. This year, I am hoping to advance to the USAMO and maybe the MOSP summer program with an AMC score of 137 and an AIME score of 100 (after many careless errors). Last year I had been accepted to both the Hampshire Summer Mathematics Program and the Canada/USA Mathcamp. I chose to go to Mathcamp and found it a pleasant experience. Also, I have spent 6 weeks in an intensive C++ programming summer camp at the PTY (Program for Talented Youth) at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. My SAT score is 1430 (800 in Math and 630 in Verbal), PSAT score is 219, composite ACT score is 31. One excuse for my unrefined verbal skills (slow reading) could be that I have lived the 1st half of my life in Kiev, Ukraine (where I was born). I am involved in some activities in my school such as the Math and Science Teams. Every week I give lectures in mathematics, particularly in geometry and problem solving. I fight to overcome the numerous obstacles and limitations that I face in my school and this certainly implies some pain and suffering. I also try to isolate myself from many activities and believe that math and science competitions and results are not as important as the simple curiosity and hunger to learn more. I read/have read numerous math and science books such as Kleppner’s and Kolenkow’s An Introduction to Mechanics and Coxeter’s and Greitzer’s Geometry Revisited. For the past two years, I have been working on an interesting science project. A month ago, I had finished condensing the work into 25 pages which could be sent for publication. I submitted the paper for the international “First Step to Nobel Prize” competition and have also been invited to the San Diego SPIE conference to be held this summer. I plan to continue this project and then to begin working on some other intriguing questions. Besides mathematics and sciences, I have been active in various sports such as karate (became 2nd degree black belt), basketball, soccer, tennis, ping-pong, and jogging. In my spare time, I had been involved in writing poetry. I have 4 poems published and plan to publish a collection of my poetry. I’m also interested in philosophy and modern literature.