Past Seminars & Colloquia

Previous colloquia and lectures

2011-2012


September 2011 Megan Kerr Nonnegatively curved homogeneous spaces: how is algebra controlling geometry?
October 2011 Moon Duchin Counting Problems
October 2011 Andrew Schultz A $q$-analog of Fleck's congruence
October 2011 Alex Diesl Strongly Clean Matrices
November 2011 Karen Lange Searching for simple integer parts
November 2011 Caroline Klivans

The Space of Phylogenetic Trees

February 2012 Michael Ching

Apollonian circle packings of the half-plane

February 2012 Aaron Hoffman

Phase Planes, Waves and Delays

February 2012 Nathan Karst

Reliable data transmission over a wireless channel 

March 2012 Andrew Schultz

Linear Algebra in your daily (digital) life

March 2012 Brian Storey

Modeling Flow and Transport in Nanofluidic Devices

March 2012 Christine Breiner

Existence and Uniqueness of Minimal Surfaces

April 2012 Elizabeth Denne

Rectangles and other polygons inscribed in curves

April 2012 Ann Trenk

The Discrepency of a Poset: Mathematical Approach to Fair Rankings

April 2012 Ashley Dombkowski

Research, MeSearch, WeSearch: How consumer-directed genetic technologies are changing the face of medicine

April 2012

Ismar Volic

Configuration spaces in topology

2010-2011


September 2010 Andrew Schultz Algebraic $K$-theory and Quadratic Reciprocity
October 2010 David Mazur Error-correcting codes: what Hamming wrought
November 2010 Jonathan Tannenhauser Entropy, Strings and Partitions of Integers
November 2010 Charles Bu Math Education in China
November 2010 Ismar Volic The fundamental theorem of finite type knot invariants
November 2010 Catherine Roberts An Equation Runs Through It: River Rafting in the Grand Canyon
March 2011 Allison Pacelli Algebraic Number Theory: An Ideal Subject
March 2011 Thomas Fleming Milnor Numbers and Clasper Surgery: How Mathematicians Study Stretchy Strings

2009-2010


September 21, 2009 Steven Miller Pythagoras at the Bat: an Introduction to Statistics and Mathematical Modelling
October 20, 2009 Chelsea Walton Noncommutative Geometry?!
November 4, 2009 Jillian Mcleod Partition Regular Matrices from a Linear Algebraic Perspective
November 13, 2009 Francis Su Voting in Agreeable Societies

2008-2009


September 23, 2008 Karen Parshall Internationalization of Mathematics
October 21, 2008 Kathryn Leonard The Terminator's eyeballs
November 4, 2008 Sol Friedberg Euler products and twisted Euler products
November 13, 2008 Dev Sinha Fixed points, from fractals to your coffee
December 2, 2008 John McCleary The square-peg problem
March 10, 2009 Pascal Lambrechts The Poincaré conjecture and the shape of the universe
March 16, 2009 Mark Kayll Integrals and graph theory
April 14, 2009 Joseph Mileti

Rainbow problem

2007-2008


October 2, 2007 Jill Pipher, Brown Univrersity Public key cryptography, lattices and NTRU
November 5, 2007 Ben Brubaker, MIT Rethinking Riemann's zeta function
February 12, 2008 Bob Devaney, Boston University The Mandelbrot set and Fibonacci sequence
April 1, 2008 Brian Munson, Harvard University Two things about the linking number
April 22, 2008 Seth Sullivant, Harvard University How secure is your data?

 

Previous Student Seminars

 

Spring 2012

January 30 Prof. Andrew Schultz Polynomial Generalizations of binomial coefficients
February 6 Erica Dohring Applications of Operations Research in Physical Oceanography
February 13 Melinda Lanius and Joy Das Putnam 2011 solutions
February 27 Stephanie Welch Exploring Incompressibility: What makes a number random?
March 5 Caroline Parnass, Laura Liu Putnam 2011 Solutions, Part II
March 12 Ginny DeviChou Cardinality and the Continuum Hypothesis
March 26 Michelle Park Derivation of Van der Waals
April 2 Laura Liu Optimization through Linear Programming
April 9 Ran Ji Super Awesome Stuff: Linear Forms Over Finite Abelian Groups

 

Fall 2011


September 12 Prof. Oscar Fernandez Hamiltonizing Nonholonomic Mechanical Systems
September 19 Melinda Lanius Universal cycles for unordered combinatorial objects
September 26 Cornelia Mihaila Multidimensional continued fractions
October 17 Divya Gopinath Combinatorics and the generalized Fibonacci numbers
October 24 Naomi Takaki The Special Theory of Relativity
October 31 Prof. Karen Lange Finding Paths through Trees
November 7 Kristen Chun A derivation of the Michaelis-Menten equation
November 14 Various Students Panel on summer math programs
November 28 Mimi Moncada The Peano Curve
December 5 Kristin Liska Game theory and the Nash equilibrium

Spring 2011


January 31 Jonathan Tannenhauser Computing $\pi$ with Colliding Balls
February 7 Various students Solutions to the 2010 Putnam Exam
February 14 Alex Gendreau Exploring the Needleman-Wunsch Algorithm
and the Polytope Propagation Algorithm
February 22 Various students Solutions to the 2010 Putnam Exam, Part II
February 28 Andrew Schultz Math Origami Workshop
March 7 Liz Ferme Disrupting Terrorist Networks
March 14 No seminar!  
March 28 Katelin Snow Group Theory and Chemistry: Molecular Symmetry and its applications
April 4 Kelly Walters Restricted Partition Functions of Integers
April 11 Josh Jordan Math for fun and profit at athenahealth
April 19 Gabriela Perez Villalobos Eulerian numbers
April 25 Amanda Curtis and Jane Rieck Visualizing Arithmetic

Fall 2010


September 13 Andrew Schultz, faculty An irrational quest
September 20 Amanda Curtis '11 Minimal surfaces and planar harmonic mappings
September 27 Melinda Lanius '12 Explorations in Tessellations
October 4 Brian Munson, faculty Minimizing distances using flux
October 12 Various students Panel on summer math programs
October 18 Cornelia Mihaila '12 Existence of Solutions to the Modified Sylvester Equation
October 25 Maddy Prenner '11 Cryptanalysis of STR-KAP
November 1 Nora Evans '11 Google Page Rank Algorithm
November 8 Anthea Cheung '12 Euler Characteristic and the Platonic Solids
November 15 Tanen Clark '11 and
Rebecca Graber '11
To Infinity and Beyond: Constructing the Real Projective Plane
November 29 Jane Rieck '11 Computability Theory

Spring 2010


February 5 Megan Kerr, faculty Straightedge and compass constructions
February 19 Lisa Abraham '10 and Geraldine Ng '10 Mathematics and Finance
March 12 Margarita Miranda '10 The Poincare Conjecture
March 19 Caitlin Danis '10 and Cecilia Flatley '10 Mathematics and Juggling
April 13 Zoe Xiao '10 Continued Fractions
April 16 Lisa Yang '10 TBD
April 23 Kate Donahue '12 TBD
April 30 Amanda Curtis '11 TBD

Fall 2009


September 21 Jizhou Wang '10 Markov chains
October 5 Alex Gendreau '12 Directed strongly regular graphs
October 19 Professor Alex Diesl Perfect numbers
October 26 Amanda Curtis '11 Quotients of polynomial rings
November 2 Margaret Ma '10 Sphere packing
November 9 Kelly Pendergast and Vanessa Zhang Fractals
November 16 Anna Loparev Automata theory
November 23 cancelled cancelled
November 30 Soumya Srinagesh '10 TBD
December 7 Katie Poon '10 and Sue He '10 TBD

Spring 2009


February 9 Stanley Chang, Professor Markov chains
February 23 Caitlin Leverson '10 Delta Sets of Numerical Monoids
March 2 Bridget Tenner Combinatorics and tilings
March 9 Erika Kahn '09 Topics in Cantorian Set Theory
March 16 Steph Xiang '09 and Katie Sang '09 The Golden Ratio
March 30 Swini Garimella '09 The Busy Beaver Function
April 6 Subin Park '11 The Square Pyramid Puzzle
April 13 Hae Jin Chang '10 Magic Squares
April 21 Sha Lu '10 Network Optimization
April 27 Amanda Curtis '11 Bernoulli Numbers
May 4 Jaree Pinthong '09 & Lin Xu '09

Shortest Path Algorithms

Fall 2008


September 8 Ismar Volic, Professor Some convergence of series proofs
September 15 Stanley Chang, Professor Famous unsolved problems in mathematics
September 22 Ashley Hartman '09 Applications of game theory
September 29 Voula Collins '09 The Euler characteristic
October 6 Natalya Kopyra '09 The Josephus problem
October 20 Ghassan Sarkis (Pomona) p-adics: a primer
October 27 Bianca Thompson '09 The axiom of choice
November 3 Amanda Curtis '11 Hyperbolic space
November 10 Jen Pawson '09 Fibonacci numbers: an unexpected result
November 17 Andrea Johnston '09 Integer programming and chemistry
December 1 Kate Sorenson '09 & Kristin Jochems '09

RSA cryptosystems

Spring 2008


February 4 Ismar Volic, Professor An introduction to knots, Part I
Februrary 11 Ismar Volic, Professor An introduction to knots, Part II
February 25 Katie Kinnaird '08 Random walks and tissue engineering
March 3 Stanley Chang, Professor Classification of closed surfaces
March 10 Sarah LaFrance '08 Conway's game of life
March 17 Amanda Curtis '11 Linear algebra, disease spread and DNA
March 31 Caitlin Leverson '10 & Fran Zeller '10 Pseudorandomness in primes
April 7 Caitlin Leverson '10 & Fran Zeller '10 Primes in arithmetic progression
April 22 Caitlin Vaccaro '08 On lambda-permutations of infinite series
April 28 Voula Collins '09 An order to the Baumslag-Solitar groups
May 5 Rebecca Rothkopf '09 Mathematics of computer vision

 

 

Upcoming Events

 

Mon, Apr 29 @ 12:20

The student seminar continues this week when Raissa Antwi and Marjorie Kasten give a joint talk.  As usual, we'll start lunch in room 362 at 12:20, then we'll move over to room 364 around 12:35 or 12:40 to begin the talk. Everyone is welcome to attend!


Tues, Apr 30 @ 4:30

Gerta Malaj, Sookyo Jeong, Sophie Sun, and Elsa Wong (Babson) will speak about their application of Bayesian statistics to quality control management at Boston Scientific. Their talk will be in room 396 of the Science Center.


Mon, May 6 @ 12:20

The student warps up for the year when HyeWon Shin and YeJi Kee give a joint talk.  As usual, we'll start lunch in room 362 at 12:20, then we'll move over to room 364 around 12:35 or 12:40 to begin the talk. Everyone is welcome to attend!


Tues, May 7 @ 5:30

Elize Huang, Rachel Insoft, Marjorie Kasten, Sarika Patel (Babson), and Sophia Guo (Babson) will speak about optimizing the pick-up and distribution routes for BigBelly (they make solar-powered trash compactors; we have two right outside the science center) Their talk will be in room 396 of the Science Center.


Wed, May 8 @ 1:00

Ran Ji will be giving a presentation on her thesis "Towards enumerating C-alt and D matrices." The talk will be held in room 364 of the Science Center, and everyone is welcomed to attend!


Thurs, May 9 @ 4:30

Laura Liu, Shuyu Gao, Farheen Rahimtoola, Ana Casillas, and Karan Kanodia (Babson) will present global pricing models they developed for Boston Scientific using optimization and statistical techniques. Their talk will be in room 396 of the Science Center.