Student Seminar

The student seminar provides an excellent opportunity for Wellesley College students to present mathematical research and different topics to both their peers and faculty. Presentations are usually substantial, typically lasting about fifty minutes from 12:30 to 1:20. Speakers therefore develop both public speaking and researching skills through their participation.

Students who are interested in speaking should contact Professor Lange in the fall and Professor Kerr in the spring. Lunch is served at every seminar during the semester. All students are welcome to attend.  

Schedule for Fall 2012

Students who are giving talks in the student seminar are asked to complete this sheet to help them prepare for their talk.

Date Speaker Title of Talk
Sept 17 Prof. Karen Lange Finding Order in the Unknown: The Erdos-Szekeres Theorem.
Sept 24 Erica Dohring How Mathematics Can Sink Submarines (and win wars)
Oct 1 Rachel Insoft Mind the Gap! An investigation of gaps in Linear Recurrences
Oct 15 Farrah Yhee Knot Projections with a Single Multi-crossing
Oct 22 Zoe Jansen Topology of the Cantor Set
Nov 5 Various students Research and More; Math Experiences Panel
Nov 12 Elise Dong Network Simplex Algorithm for Minimum Cost Flows
Nov 25 Caroline Psutka Pick's Theorem and its Applications
Dec 3 Sachi Shah  

 

Interested in Speaking in the Student Seminar?

Any student interested in lecturing may seek faculty advice on finding a topic appropriate for her; a list of possible student talks is also available here. A PLTC public speaking tutor will be able to help in preparation. To see the seminars presented in the past, please click here. This website offers tips on giving a good presentation, as well as this document. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions are also available.

For students who already have a topic in mind, this is a list of faculty members who can help assist you as you develop your presentation.

Stanley Chang (on leave spring '13)
  • Applications of linear algebra to economics, genetics and cryptography
  • Number theory
  • Basic topology, the classification of surfaces

Alexander Diesl (on leave '12-'13)

  • Various topics in algebra and number theory

Oscar Fernandez

  • Hamiltonian and non-Hamiltonian Mechanics and Integrability
  • Dynamical Systems
  • Mathematical Physics

Megan Kerr

  • Non-Euclidean geometry: the parallel postulate
  • Sphere-packing
  • Minimal surfaces, double bubble theorem

Karen Lange

  • Topics in Logic; the Recursion Theorem, Goedel's theorems, set theory

Martin Magid

  • Topics in geometry: the Theorem Egregium, the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem
  • Set theory, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem
  • Non-parametric statistics tests

Andy Schultz

  • Number theoretic topics including error-correcting codes and check-digit schemes, primality testing and pseudoprimes, the nature of $\pi$ (its irrationality, its decimal expansion, etc.), etc.
  • Linear algebra topics including applications image compression and Markov processes
 Alan Shuchat
  • Infinite-dimensional vector spaces, Banach and Hilbert spaces
  • Linear programming and optimization
  • Queues and probability

Fred Shultz

  • Linear algebra and applications, including applications to quantum mechanics
  • Dynamical systems, chaos theory
  • Functional analysis, including infinite-dimensional linear algebra, quantum computing, Fourier series
  • Topics in combinatorics

Jonathan Tannenhauser

  • Physics
  • Connections between mathematics and physics or biology

Ann Trenk

  • Topics in graph theory
  • Topics in combinatorics

Ismar Volic

  • Topics in topology: classification of surfaces, the fundamental group, topological groups, interplay between geometry and analysis
  • Knot theory, Seifert surfaces, the Jones polynomial, Poincare conjecture
  • Topics in number theory: quadratic reciprocity, Diophantine equations, cryptography, open problems
  •  

 

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.