Adam Orval Kalinich
Illinois
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Adam Orval Kalinich, 17, of Glen Ellyn, submitted an Intel Science Talent Search project in mathematics which concerned
the complexity of determining the winner of poset games. Poset games are two-player combinatorial games such as Nim and Chomp. Adam
used insights from Nim to obtain results for general poset games. He described a method for taking a game with a known winner and
producing a second game with the other player as winner. From this he concluded that it must be difficult in general to determine the
winner of a game, since otherwise one could do certain computations faster than possible. He recently published his findings as sole
author in the peer-reviewed journal Information Processing Letters. Adam attends the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
in Aurora where he competes on the varsity quiz bowl team. In recent years Adam has backpacked through Europe, Vietnam and Cambodia.
His travels inspired him to arrange a week-long workshop in Phnom Penh to educate high school students on combinatorics and game theory
in preparation for the International Math Olympiad. The son of Kevin and Gail Kalinich, he enjoys playing board games and bridge as well
as reading graphic novels.
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