Fall 2023
Tuesdays, 12:55-1:45 PM, LCB 225
MATH 6960-001
(Dates with * indicate an unusual time or location)
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Aug 22 | HSAC Kickoff | Contact: Patrick Talley |
| Aug 29 | Life as a Grad Student Panel | Contact: Keshav Patel We will hold a panel featuring funded PhD students from various years and research disciplines in the program. This is your time to ask any burning questions, including but not limited to:
|
| Sep 5 | Computing Resources Talk | Contact: Nelson Beebe Dr. Nelson Beebe, a research professor in our department, will give an introduction to our department's computing resources. We hope this will be a chance for members to learn about how to access and run code on our servers. |
| Sep 12 | Career Fair Prep Workshop | Contact: Patrick Talley This week in GSAC colloquium we will have career coaches from our Career and Professional Development Center give a workshop on how to prepare for the career fair. As you may know the University hosts a a campus wide career fair on the 19th and a STEM specific fair on the 26th of September. These are great opportunities to find internships over the summer. Even if you don't intend on attending the fair, the skills in the workshop like creating an elevator pitch, and how to sell your skills to employers will be incredibly helpful for your future job search. |
| *Sep 19 | Canceled |
| *Sep 26 | Attend the Career Fair (No Meeting) |
| Oct 3 | Organizational Suggestions for Research and Projects | Contact: Akil Narayan Research alone is hard enough; don’t let logistics and organization weigh you down. Come join a discussion about how planning, idea and document organization, and the exercise of general workplace soft skills can benefit your productivity and assist your research agenda. |
| *Oct 10 |
Fall Break (No Meeting) |
| Oct 17 | Grad Student Success Workshop | Contact: Patrick Talley This week we'll have our friends from U Career Success by to talk about career exploration. This talk will also touch on what to do in graduate school to be successful in the job market and what employers are looking for as you start applying for a job. |
| *Oct 28 | AWM Speaker Series | 12:55-1:45 PM, LBC 222 | Contact: Keshav Patel Dr. Melody Chan (Brown University) "Talking about talking about math" Abstract: I care a lot about communication and exposition in mathematics, not only for the sake of the mathematics itself, but as a way to build a warm, welcoming environment in which we may learn mathematics together. I'll make some remarks along these lines about some of my specific experiences and strategies, and I will also ask for your input. I'm also happy to talk about any aspect of my path as a mathematician. Please ask me anything you want! |
| *Oct 31 | Canceled |
| *Nov 7 | AWM Speaker Series | 4:35-5:25 PM, LCB 225 | Contact: Keshav Patel Dr. Matt Menickelly (Argone National Labs) "One Mathematician's Role in the National Labs" Abstract: In this (informal and short) presentation, I will outline how I went from being an undergraduate interested in, but not majoring in, mathematics to a PhD in … not mathematics … to working as a computational mathematician at a Department of Energy national laboratory. I will share my perspective on the role of applied mathematics in the national laboratories. I will also provide insight on navigating a career path as a gender minority and offer plenty of unsolicited advice in a range of subjects skirting with professionalism. Please bring questions and a spirit of generosity. |
| Nov 14 | On the convex hull of a forager | Contact: Samantha Linn The convex hull of a set is the smallest convex shape by volume containing that set. For example, the convex hull of a seastar is a pentagon and the convex hull of a pufferfish is a pufferfish. But what is the convex hull of a random set? In particular, what can we say about the mean area and perimeter of convex hulls produced by stochastic search processes? In this talk, I will describe preliminary efforts to rigorously answer this question and show some cool simulations. This work is part of an ongoing collaboration with Tory Richardson and Misha Sweeney. |
| Nov 21 | How I learned the meaning of o(x^2) by doing algebraic geometry | Contact: Matthew Bertucci There's no probability measure on the ring of polynomials over a finite field (or the integers) that captures the intuitive notion of "density" of elements with some property. We'll discuss how to fix this, and how it's connected to interesting questions in algebraic geometry in positive characteristic. |
| Nov 28 | Industry Jobs Panel | Contact: Keshav Patel We are delighted to have Matteo Fiorini and Vanessa Bailey from the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE). Their talk is entitled "Developing Teaching Philosophy and EDI Commitment Statements". This should be helpful to hear about as we look ahead to next semester. |
| Dec 5 | Scientific Evidence of Psi | Contact: Daniel Hallman Have you ever tried to influence the world using only your mind? Of course not. As a logical and fair-minded practitioner of mathematics, your perception of reality is likely firmly in line with conventional scientific consensus. The tides go in. The tides go out. No one can explain that (actually we can). The Earth revolves around the Sun. 1+1 = 2, water is wet, and so on. We know things. The scientific method has been an undeniable triumph of human ingenuity, offering a congruous description of reality that is as fantastical as it is actionable. The story of the big bang and the countless supernovas that ultimately created us is already more entertaining than any fiction. Incorporeal influencers of reality (e.g. ghosts, UFOs, psychic powers, magic, etc.) has been deprecated into hopeless obscurity; the result of ancient human ignorance. If the universe is entirely explained by spacetime, energy, and a few cosmological constants, then what is the point of subjective experience? To unironically attribute any significance to such a thing in our understanding of reality is merely an exercise in futility and buffoonery -- benign pointlessness incarnate. As you and I have learned, your consciousness is merely a bug in the system. Or, perhaps more accurately, an unfortunate (and mostly unpleasant) emergent property of biological forms with sufficient complexity. A cosmic giggle. Prepare yourselves for an unprecedented rollercoaster ride through the fabric of reality in the most eagerly awaited talk in GSAC history (we expect attendance to potentially reach double-digits!!). In this talk, we will embark on a cosmic adventure that will challenge your perception of the universe, time, and perhaps even your own sanity. Forget about theorems and proofs – this talk transcends the conventional boundaries of mathematical discourse and dives headfirst into the whimsical realm of consciousness as the bedrock of existence, and the ridiculous implications thereof. |