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Jen Lara

The daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and the first in her family to attend college, Jen Lara grew up in the Corona, Queens, neighborhood of New York City. A mathematics major, Jen is passionate about education and helping more minority women enter STEM fields. 

Jen Lara

Jen Lara arrived at Bard intending to become a physics major with a future in engineering, but an important part of her Bard education included the realization that other interests were dearer to her heart. 
 
“I saw that my real passion is not in the world of engineering. It doesn’t hold the sparkle for me. I've always been teaching, I have always tutored, I've always worked with nonprofits. I want to work in education in the minority community to see women in STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics]. STEM is where I can use my talents and abilities to do what I'm really passionate about, which is helping my community to do better in these subjects.”
 
So she is majoring in mathematics, and spent time teaching STEM at a nonprofit and at a local middle school. “Everything in my life revolves around education,” she says.
 
The daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and the first in her family to attend college, Lara grew up in the Corona, Queens, neighborhood of New York City. Her adviser convinced her to look at Bard, which, she says, was “the only school” that noted her first-generation status could be empowering rather than limiting. “They said, ‘We need to make a plan and find a space for you to be able to accomplish whatever you want to do. We’ll figure it out and we’ll make it happen.’ It was the first time I thought, ‘I don't have to do things by myself.’”
 
Lara became a  peer counselor (PC) at Bard—someone in the residence halls who is trained to deal with many of her fellow residents’ concerns—which helped bring her out of her shell. “My first year I experienced culture shock, and being a PC has made me more social. I like being a support system for students, and the students are just as much a role model for me as I am for them. I take as much as I give. I tell them, ‘Advocate for yourselves; it’s the best thing that you can do.’” 
 
In addition to being a PC and tutoring, she holds two jobs on campus while carrying her academic load. Nevertheless, she says, “I have students in my residence who run clubs and do athletics and their academics—that’s inspiring to me.” 
 
One surprising thing she has learned at Bard is that “I learn very differently from most students. The time and dedication the faculty invested to help me made me realize that there are many different ways to learn. The strong support system makes sure that the way they are teaching matches the way you are learning.”
 
She wants students who are interested in Bard to know the kind of education she is receiving in Annandale: “You really learn how to be confident in your abilities and not be hard on yourself when things go wrong,” she advises. “You should be hungry, when you get here, to build the community that you want. The fact that Bard gives you the opportunity to do that is not something you’ll find at any other school.”
 
“At Bard,” she adds, “you are going to do things that you never thought you were capable of doing. And they might make you feel uncomfortable, but the fact that you can create a support system means you can also create the path that you want to take.”

Post Date: 08-03-2022

Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05, “Rock Star” Teacher, Talks Teaching Gerrymandering with Chalkbeat

Teaching without an agenda is not something that concerns Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05. “I do have an agenda. I want to see a national shift in how we teach math, what math is, and who has access to it,” Belin said in an interview with Chalkbeat. In their role at the Bronx’s Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, they continue to teach the mathematics of gerrymandering, “an especially relevant topic” today, and one that “will likely continue to be.”

Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05, “Rock Star” Teacher, Talks Teaching Gerrymandering with Chalkbeat

Teaching without an agenda is not something that concerns Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05. “I do have an agenda. I want to see a national shift in how we teach math, what math is, and who has access to it,” Belin said in an interview with Chalkbeat. In their role at the Bronx’s Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, they continue to teach the mathematics of gerrymandering, “an especially relevant topic” today, and one that “will likely continue to be.” A winner of the 2021 Math for America (MƒA) Muller Award for Professional Influence in Education, Belin says their belief in the power of education was developed while at Bard, both as an undergraduate and graduate student. “I learned in college that mathematics was about creativity, patterns, problem-solving, and many more things that aren’t necessarily taught in K-12 school,” they said. “The master’s program at Bard College gave me hope that it was possible to bring more real mathematics into schools and that more students might fall in love with it, too.”
 
Read More on Chalkbeat

Post Date: 04-26-2022

Professor Japheth Wood Awarded the American Mathematical Society’s Epsilon Award for the Third Time

For the third time, the American Mathematical Society has awarded Japheth Wood, director of quantitative literacy and continuing associate professor of mathematics, and the Creative and Analytical Math Programs (CAMP) of the Bard Math Circle the Epsilon Award. The award aids and promotes programs that “support and nurture mathematically talented youth in the United States,” funding existing summer programs proven to reach and support high school students.

Professor Japheth Wood Awarded the American Mathematical Society’s Epsilon Award for the Third Time

For the third time, the American Mathematical Society has awarded Japheth Wood, director of quantitative literacy and continuing associate professor of mathematics, and the Creative and Analytical Math Programs (CAMP) of the Bard Math Circle the Epsilon Award. The award aids and promotes programs that “support and nurture mathematically talented youth in the United States,” funding existing summer programs proven to reach and support high school students. CAMP will return to an in-person format this year and will serve local and regional middle school students, with a staff that includes Bard alumni/ae and current students in mathematics and computer science.
 
Learn More

Post Date: 03-22-2022
More Math News
  • High School Mathematics Teacher and Bard Alumna Kate Belin Wins 2021 Math for America Muller Award

    High School Mathematics Teacher and Bard Alumna Kate Belin Wins 2021 Math for America Muller Award

    Kate Belin BA ’04, MAT ’05, who teaches at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, is one of two winners of the 2021 Math for America (MƒA) Muller Award for Professional Influence in Education. This honor is given to two New York City public school teachers who, during their tenure as MƒA Master Teachers, have influenced the teaching profession in exceptional ways.

    “Belin brings a creative approach to pedagogy and has dramatically improved math education at their school and beyond. She is being recognized for bringing her deep understanding of mathematics to all students and taking a leadership role to improve education and educational equity everywhere and for everyone,” writes MƒA. 
     
    “I am beyond grateful to MƒA for this recognition and for providing a space for teachers to come together as learners and leaders. This award also recognizes the work of the entire Fannie Lou community which has always understood that teaching is political,” said Belin. “We aren’t simply teaching subjects. We are teaching to fight injustices. Our job is to be activists and organizers in collaboration with our students—to mobilize youth for any issues that exist in their community, country, or world, and work together to make it better.”
     
    Belin was recognized for her impact on the teaching profession and awarded $20,000 during a virtual MƒA award ceremony on Monday, October 18. In addition, $5,000 was awarded to the school or organization of their nominator. Belin was nominated by representatives from the Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School.

    Kate Belin has taught mathematics at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School for the past 17 years, transforming the mathematics curriculum of the school and mentoring student teachers. She was a recipient of the 2011 Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science in Mathematics and was a Fulbright Distinguished Awards Teaching Fellow to Botswana in 2016. Belin earned their B.A. in Mathematics and M.A.T. at Bard College and has been an adjunct professor at City College of New York, Bard College, and the Bard Prison Initiative.
    Read More

    Post Date: 10-19-2021
  • Professor Lauren L. Rose Selected as Association for Women in Mathematics 2022 Fellow

    Professor Lauren L. Rose Selected as Association for Women in Mathematics 2022 Fellow

    Associate Professor of Mathematics Lauren L. Rose has been selected as one of 13 scholars to join the Fifth Class of Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Fellows. These individuals are extraordinary researchers, mentors, and educators whose commitment to supporting and growing women across the mathematical sciences is praised by their students and colleagues. 

    Rose is being honored: “For broad efforts in the professional development of women in mathematics, especially undergraduate women; for her commitment to involving people from diverse communities in mathematics, through Math Circles and outreach in prisons; and for her creative contributions to the AWM including the We Speak Series and the Card Project,” states the AWM committee.

    “I am very happy to announce the 2022 list of new AWM Fellows. We recognize these individuals for their exceptional dedication to increasing the success and visibility of women in mathematics,” wrote Kathryn Leonard, AWM President. The AWM 2022 Fellows will be recognized during the AWM reception held in January. 

    The Executive Committee of the Association for Women in Mathematics established the AWM Fellows Program to recognize individuals who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to the support and advancement of women in the mathematical sciences. The Fellows epitomize the mission of the AWM, which is to promote equitable opportunities and support for women and girls in the mathematical sciences.

    Post Date: 10-14-2021
  • Bard Professor Japheth Wood Receives 2021 MAA Award for Top Expository Mathematical Writing

    Bard Professor Japheth Wood Receives 2021 MAA Award for Top Expository Mathematical Writing

    Japheth Wood, director of quantitative literacy and continuing associate professor of mathematics at Bard College, is recognized for his article “Chords of an Ellipse, Lucas Polynomials, and Cubic Equations,” coauthored by Ben Blum-Smith and published by the American Mathematical Monthly. “We are thrilled to be recognized for this honor, and to now have our names associated with Paul Halmos and Lester Ford, as well as the long list of other excellent expositors who have been so lauded,” said Wood and Blum-Smith.
    Read more at AMM
    Read the journal article

    Post Date: 08-03-2021
  • American Mathematical Society Recognizes Bard Math Circle’s CAMP Program and Its Founder, Professor Japheth Wood

    American Mathematical Society Recognizes Bard Math Circle’s CAMP Program and Its Founder, Professor Japheth Wood

    The Bard Math Circle’s Creative and Analytical Math Program (CAMP) and its founder, professor Japheth Wood, have been recognized with a 2020 Epsilon Award for Young Scholars Programs. The Epsilon Awards, given annually by the American Mathematical Society, support some of the most prestigious summer math enrichment programs in the United States.

    CAMP is not “summer camp.” It is a nonresidential academic program for middle school students that features mathematics in a creative learning environment. CAMP started in August 2014 with initial funding from the Dolciani Math Enrichment Grant Program, and it has grown to become a popular late-summer treat for math kids in the Mid-Hudson Valley and beyond. Experienced educators and undergraduate math majors lead classes and activities that emphasize hands-on math, teamwork, and outside-the-box thinking.

    This summer, CAMP was held online for the first time. During the first week in August, 49 middle schoolers and a staff of 15—including seven Bard math and computer science majors and two Bard math alumnae—got together via Zoom. “Since cyberspace shortened the distance between us, the Bard Math Circle received numerous applications from around the country,” says Wood. “We could see students’ excitement over running into old friends and connecting with new CAMPers in Zoom classrooms.”
    The cipher wheel used for decoding messages.


    This year’s CAMP theme was cryptography. Students explored cipher encryption (using a cipher wheel like the one at right), created artworks with encoded messages, made cryptograms, and more.

    “Though [CAMP] wasn’t around during my student days at Bard, an amazing community has developed since,” says Bard alumna and CAMP senior instructor Erin Toliver ’00. “I love seeing the look on a student’s face when they’ve discovered a new pattern, found a different perspective, or made a new connection for a deeper understanding of this glorious world of mathematics.”

    Learn more about the CAMP program at bardmathcircle.org.
    Full story at ams.org

    Post Date: 09-22-2020
  • Bard Assistant Professor of Mathematics Matthew Junge Talks with WAMC about National Science Foundation RAPID Grant to Study COVID-19 Forecasting Models

    Bard Assistant Professor of Mathematics Matthew Junge Talks with WAMC about National Science Foundation RAPID Grant to Study COVID-19 Forecasting Models

    “What’s really distinguishing [our study} from a lot of the studies that are being quoted by the national press . . . and the Administration is that we look at the local connections inside of communities, and those are usually ignored by bigger studies,” Junge tells WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne. “Our study’s taking this opposite perspective of really finally modelling person-to-person connections that come up in our day-to-day lives, like who we socialize with, where we work, connections of that sort, and we ask how the disease spreads in this sort of zoomed-in picture.”
    Full interview at WAMC

    Post Date: 05-20-2020
  • Bard College Professors Win National Science Foundation Rapid Grant to Develop Forecasting Models that Better Capture the Geographic and Social Complexity of the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Bard College Professors Win National Science Foundation Rapid Grant to Develop Forecasting Models that Better Capture the Geographic and Social Complexity of the COVID-19 Pandemic

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Bard College professors Matthew Junge, mathematics, and Felicia Keesing, biology; and Grinnell College professor Nicole Eikmeier, computer science, a $60,000 grant to develop network models that—by more accurately incorporating social distancing measures—better capture the geographic and social complexity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Awarded through the NSF’s Rapid Response Research (RAPID) program, which provides support for urgent scientific research that responds to emergencies and unexpected events, the grant includes funding for salaries, publishing costs, and several undergraduate research assistants over a six-month period.

    Junge, Bard assistant professor of mathematics and lead investigator on the project, says their project aims to develop network models and mathematical theory to test the robustness of some prominent models being used by governments to justify the extreme levels of intervention we are living through. One advantage of a network model, which tries to accurately describe the face-to-face interactions each individual in a society has and how an infection might spread, is that it is relatively easy to implement social distancing into the network.

    “Mathematicians are fairly adept at modeling the natural evolution of epidemics, but most ‘off the shelf’ models were not built to describe the dramatic levels of intervention—business closures, travel limitations, and social distancing—that we are living through during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Junge. “The grant brings together a biologist (Felicia), computer scientist (Nicole), and mathematician (myself) as well as a few undergrad research assistants to tackle this problem over the next six months. Felicia is an expert in infectious disease, Nicole in modeling real world networks, and I am experienced in network infection models.”

    Matthew Junge, assistant professor of mathematics, comes to Bard from Duke University, where he served as William W. Elliott Research Assistant Professor. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Washington, where he also earned MS, BS, and BA degrees. His areas of interest include probability, statistical physics, and mathematical biology. Junge’s research takes a probabilistic approach to particle systems from physics and biology, including models for chemical reactions, species proliferation, and epidemic outbreaks. He also studies random structures from classical mathematics and computer science, such as permutations and fragmented spaces.

    Felicia Keesing, David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of Science, Mathematics, and Computing, has been on the Bard faculty since 2000. She has a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1995, she has studied how African savannas function when the large, charismatic animals like elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and giraffes disappear. She also studies how interactions among species influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. Keesing also studies Lyme disease, another tick-borne disease. She is particularly interested in how species diversity affects disease transmission.

    Nicole Elkmeier is an assistant professor of computer science at Grinnell College. She has a PhD in Mathematics from Purdue University and a BA from in mathematics and computer science from Concordia College. Her research is in the field of Network Analysis, specifically focused on studying features of real data and constructing and analyzing graph models which maintain those features. A network, in this case, is a set of nodes (people, web pages, etc.) connected by edges (physical connection, collaboration, etc). She is interested in random graph models, which are used to study how well an algorithm may do on a real-world network, and for testing properties that may further improve algorithms. Her research is at the intersection of math and computer science.
     


    Post Date: 05-07-2020

Mathematics Events

  • 8/16
    Tuesday

    Tuesday, August 16, 2022
    Reem-Kayden Center, Laszlo Z. Bito ‘60 Auditorium 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Questions about the Math Placement? Confused about what math course to take? Japheth Wood, Director of Quantitative Literacy, will be available to answer your questions.

    4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Reem-Kayden Center, Laszlo Z. Bito ‘60 Auditorium
  • 8/17
    Wednesday

    Wednesday, August 17, 2022
    Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito ‘60 Auditorium 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Questions about the Math Placement? Confused about what math course to take? Japheth Wood, Director of Quantitative Literacy, will be available to answer your questions.

    4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito ‘60 Auditorium
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View Full Archive


2021 Past Events

  • Tuesday, December 14, 2021 
    Reem-Kayden Center  4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5
  • Tuesday, December 7, 2021 
    Justin Shin, University of Pittsburgh
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
    US law recognizes that statistical evidence can play an important role in determining whether or not an organization is guilty of discrimination. At the same time, legal scholars have cast doubts on the appropriateness of mathematical evidence and probabilistic standards in jurisprudence. As Laurence Tribe famously notes, mathematical evidence poses a special danger because it is often both impressive and inscrutable to the typical juror. How do we square concerns about statistical evidence with its use in discrimination law? One solution is to recognize the causal nature of discrimination and understand the concerns with statistical evidence as concerns to do with causal relevance. With recent developments in causal modeling, new kinds of statistical evidence give rise to fresh concerns about the role of statistics in law while breathing new life into old complaints. Discrimination has inescapable causal baggage, and some reform in discrimination law and jurisprudence as a whole is needed if evidence from causal modeling is to be appropriately digested by US courts.

  • Tuesday, November 16, 2021 
      Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
    Tina Giorgadze
    "Building an Agent-based Computational Model of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-Cell Immunotherapy in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Using Binary Distribution of Antigens"

    Hannah Kaufmann
    "Minimal Presentation Sizes of Numerical Semigroups"
    A numerical semigroup is a subset of integers closed under addition, while a minimal presentation is a choice of minimal relations between generators of the numerical semigroup. It is a well-known fact that if m is the smallest positive element, then the size of the minimal presentation is at most m choose 2. Finding the possible minimal presentation sizes of numerical semigroups whose smallest positive element, or multiplicity, is m has been a long-standing open problem. In this talk, we introduce the role of embedding dimension in determining the attainable minimal presentation sizes. For each pairing of multiplicity and embedding dimension, we present multiple classes of numerical semigroups and pose upper and lower bounds. Our methods are not only combinatorial, but also involve posets and betti elements.

    Verity Scheel
    "Embedding Dimensions of Simplicial Complexes on Few Vertices"
    As the result of summer research with Steve Simon (Bard) and Florian Frick (CMU), we found a straightforward characterization of simplicial complexes on few vertices that embed into the d-sphere. Simplicial complexes can be studied both as geometric objects embedded into space and as combinatorial set systems, and our result provides a simple combinatorial property that corresponds to topological characteristics of the same object. In particular, a simplicial complex on d+3 vertices embeds into the d-sphere if and only if its non-faces do not form an intersecting family. Like the case of planar graphs, we show in addition that such complexes satisfy the rigidity property that continuous and linear embeddability are equivalent.

  • Wednesday, November 3, 2021 
      Hegeman 308  12:30 pm – 1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Talia Willcott, Ansel Tessier, Rachael Yoder, Andrew Stafford, Verity Scheel, Julia Sheffler

  • Tuesday, November 2, 2021 
    Amalia Culiuc, Amherst College
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    In 1807, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier's study of the theory and flow of heat led to the publication of his "Mémoire sur la propagation de la chaleur dans les corps solides" (Treatise on the propagation of heat in solid bodies). This work, which introduced the notion of representing continuous functions in terms of sums of trigonometric functions, continues to be celebrated today as a foundational collection of ideas for the modern mathematical field of harmonic analysis. With applications ranging from signal processing to medical imaging, Fourier theory remains an active area of research to this day. In this talk we will give a brief introduction to Fourier series, their convergence properties, and the beautiful mathematics they helped create. No background beyond a second semester calculus course will be assumed.

  • Friday, October 22, 2021 
    Join our students in presenting their summer research!
    Reem-Kayden Center  4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
  • Friday, October 22, 2021 
      Dani Schultz
    Merck Pharmaceuticals

    Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium  12:10 pm – 1:10 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Aspects of this session will highlight my journey from a small town in northern Wisconsin to the bustling east coast where leaning into discomfort has been critical in driving my career at Merck and the chemistry that I have pursued. Throughout my career, I have tapped into my ability to forge meaningful collaborations, internally and externally, to challenge the status quo and drive disruptive thinking – both in chemistry but also in improving STEM culture. I’ll briefly touch upon some recently completed academic-industrial research collaborations that aimed to empower early-career female professors and provide a platform to mentor and train female professors and students in pharmaceutical research. Throughout all of this, I have a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion and will share how I’ve navigated raising important, and at times difficult, topics and how to influence workplace culture. I’ve learned a lot through failed experiments along the way and I am looking forward to an active discussion with fellow changemakers!

    Dani Schultz received her PhD from the University of Michigan working with Professor John Wolfe and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Professor Tehshik Yoon. Since joining Merck in 2014, Dani has been a member of Process Chemistry and Enabling Technologies in Rahway, NJ and as of 2021 became the Director of the Discovery Process Chemistry group in Kenilworth, NJ. Throughout her time at Merck, Dani has been involved in the development of synthetic routes for drug candidates spanning HIV and oncology – forging meaningful collaborations, both internally and externally, to address the synthetic challenges that occur during pharmaceutical development. Most recently, she has served as co-host to the Pharm to Table podcast that aims to elevate the people and stories behind #MerckChemistry.

  • Thursday, October 21, 2021 
      Chuck Doran, University of Alberta
    Olin 306  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Starting from a humble pair of points, we will “twist” our way up Calabi-Yau fibered spaces, through the hidden geometries of String Theory and Mathematics.  Along the way, we’ll explore the subtle interplay between geometry, algebra, and topology.  This talk is designed to be broadly accessible to undergraduates.  All are welcome. 

  • Tuesday, October 19, 2021 
    Miriam Kuzbary, Georgia Institute of Technology
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Knot theory is a rich and active area of research involving questions of interest both to mathematicians and to researchers outside of mathematics, and many of these questions boil down to a single essential query: how can one tell when two knots are different? In this talk, we will discuss why this is a difficult question to answer. In particular, we will learn about polynomials used to detect properties of knots and the surprising geometric implications of some knot polynomials.

  • Wednesday, October 6, 2021 
    Join MoMath for "QUADS: a SET®-like game" featuring Lauren Rose, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Bard College
    Online Event  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    How good are your pattern-recognition skills?  Find out as you learn this exciting, new SET®-like card game, QUADS.  Join us for an evening of fun as Lauren Rose, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Bard College, shares the rules of this engaging game she co-invented, then dive beneath the surface to see how combinatorics, probability, and algebra are the underlying mathematical engines that drive the fun.

    Special introduction by Liz McMahon, Professor of Mathematics at Lafayette College, and Gary Gordon, Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Mathematics at Lafayette College.

    You can join in by participating in a live-stream broadcast of the event. 
    Registration is free.  Choose from two sessions:

    Math Encounters (online)
    Register for 4:00 pm ET (New York) session
    Register for 7:00 pm ET (New York) session
    Math Encounters (mathencounters.org) is MoMath's popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics, produced with support from the Simons Foundation.

  • Tuesday, October 5, 2021 
      John Cullinan, Mathematics Program
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Much of modern number theory involves studying solutions to equations with integer coefficients.  By combining techniques of geometry and abstract algebra, mathematicians have been able to solve fundamental questions, such as Fermat's Last Theorem and the Sato-Tate Conjecture.More recently, statistics has become an important tool for studying number theoretic problems that resist classical techniques.  In this talk, we will introduce this area of mathematics by focusing on three specific examples taken from three different areas of number theory.  We will also do some real-time computation and data generation.  This talk should be accessible to anyone who has taken Proofs and Fundamentals.

  • Tuesday, September 21, 2021 
    Ludlow Tent  5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Join us in the Ludlow tent for the Math Program Open House!  Find out more about courses, program requirements and meet some faculty!  Refreshments will be available!

  • Tuesday, September 21, 2021 
    Orsola Capovilla-Searle, University of California-Davis
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Contact topology arose from the study of Hamiltonian dynamics, and is a field with applications to dynamics, optics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, geometry, and topology. A 3-dimensional space with a contact structure is a space with a plane associated to every point where the planes twist in a specific way. Legendrian submanifolds of a contact 3-dimensional space are special submanifolds that lie tangent to the planes in the contact structure. 

    A knot in 3-dimensional space is a tangled string whose endpoints have been glued together. A link is a disjoint union of knots. A Legendrian knot is a knot that also lies tangent to the planes in the contact structure in the 3-dimensional space. Two Legendrian knots are distinct if I can't "wiggle" one to the other while always staying tangent to the planes in the contact structure. 

    If one considers a 4-dimensional space X with a 3-dimensional boundary Y , one can study surfaces in X whose boundary is a link in Y. By adding geometrical constraints to such a space X and the surface, the link can be Legendrian. I will talk about some results on Lagrangian surfaces whose boundary are Legendrian links.

    **Following the seminar, please join us in the Ludlow tent for the Math Program Open House!  Refreshments available!**

  • Tuesday, September 7, 2021 
    Adam Lowrance, Vassar College
    Hegeman 102  4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Take off your shoelaces, tie them up, and fuse the two ends together to form a continuous lace without ends. Now you have a mathematical knot. Two knots are the same if you can move, bend, and stretch one until it looks exactly like the other. Now take a flashlight and point it at your knot. The shadow of your knot on the wall is called a knot diagram or a knot projection.

    One common way to study knots is via their invariants, quantities that are associated with the knot that do not change regardless of how the knot is presented. One such invariant is the Jones polynomial. In this talk, we define the Jones polynomial of a knot and discuss what the Jones polynomial tells us about a knot.

  • Thursday, May 20, 2021 
    Join our graduating seniors in presenting their research!
    Main Commencement Tent  5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Please see the abstract booklet below for full descriptions of students' research.


    Download: Senior Project Poster session booklet S21.pdf
  • Wednesday, May 5, 2021 
    Ismar Volić, Wellesley College
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Simplicial complexes are versatile objects in the intersection of graph theory, combinatorics, topology, and geometry. While mathematicians have always appreciated the fact that simplicial complexes are extremely powerful in spite of being easy to define and relatively easy to work with, their usefulness in real-world applications  has increased dramatically just in the last decade or so.

    In this talk, I will first discuss the definition and the basic constructions that can be performed with simplicial complexes, toggling back and forth between combinatorics and topology. I will then give an overview of some of their recent applications in signal processing, neuroscience, data analysis, and social sciences. I will in particular describe ongoing work by several undergraduates at Wellesley College in which certain types of political systems and their interactions are modeled by simplicial complexes. 

    This talk should be accessible to anyone who has had some exposure to combinatorics (basics of combinations and permutations).

    Zoom Info: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, April 28, 2021 
    Mona Merling '09, University of Pennsylvania
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    To avoid misleading anyone, this talk will not be about the sociology of topologists! "Social choice" is a model for decision making in economic, social, and political contexts. For example: suppose that each person gets to vote on their favorite location where they would like to place a statue on an island. Is there a fair way based on these votes to choose the location? This will turn out to be a topological, even a homotopical, problem, depending on the topology of the island. In this talk we will explore social choice models and answer the question about when they exist using algebraic topology.

    The purpose of this talk is to serve as an advertisement for algebraic topology and basic category theory. I will not assume any background other than calculus (in particular the notion of continuity so that I can give an intuition about topology). Familiarity with abstract algebra will help, but I will err on the side of defining what a group is, and I will give a crash course in category theory.

    Zoom Info: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 74261

  • Wednesday, April 21, 2021 
      Hala Nelson, James Madison University
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Today's popular AI is mostly software, algorithms, and big data processing. Mathematics powers most of these AI techniques that are rapidly integrated into every aspect of our society and are useful for a vast array of applications. AI agents only understand numbers, more specifically, blobs of zeros and ones. In this talk we will use undergraduate mathematics to make an AI agent process our natural language, recognize what she sees, and make intelligent decisions. We will work out simple examples that have wide applications in the Artificial Intelligence sphere. This is an extremely undergraduate friendly talk and you only need to have calculus and linear algebra backgrounds.

    Zoom Info: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, April 14, 2021 
    Florian Frick, Carnegie Mellon University
    Online Event  1:30 pm – 2:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
    How do you fairly divide rent among roommates, a necklace among thieves, or a pizza between friends? Such questions of fair division can often be understood with the tools of geometry and topology — even for those problems that are not geometric to begin with. We will discuss how to do this, and why topology is useful for problems that appear to be unrelated to topology. In particular, we will explore a relation between fairly splitting a necklace and inscribing shapes into curves. No prior knowledge of topology is needed, and this talk is available to all who are familiar with some linear algebra or multivariable calculus. 

     https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, April 7, 2021 
    Galen Dorpalen-Barry '15, University of Minnesota
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    In 1943, J. L. Woodbridge of Philadelphia submitted the following problem to American Mathematical Monthly: “Show that n cuts can divide a cheese into as many as $(n+1)(n^2 - n + 6)/6$ pieces.”

    This question and its solution are deeply connected to the study of collections of lines in $mathbb{R}^2$, planes in $mathbb{R}^3$, and more generally hyperplanes in $mathbb{R}^n$. We will explore the solution and a more general version: given n (hyper)planes in a real, d-dimensional vector space, how can we figure out the number of chambers of an arrangement of hyperplanes, without necessarily being able to see and count them?

    There are many wonderful solutions to this question. We present one provided by the Varchenko-Gel’fand ring, which is the ring of functions from the chambers of the arrangement to the integers with pointwise addition and multiplication. Varchenko and Gel’fand gave a simple presentation for this ring, which can be computed using simple facts about linear algebra.

    We will assume very little background but expect that the audience is familiar with linear independence and dependence. We will give a ring-theoretic solution to this problem, so it may be helpful (but not necessary) to be familiar with quotient rings.

    Zoom Info: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, March 31, 2021 
    Ethan Bloch, Bard College
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    In this talk we discuss the interplay between curvature and the distance between points on polyhedra.  We start by discussing the curvature of polyhedra, which is concentrated at the vertices, and we then consider the question of whether or not a shortest path between two points on a polyhedron can pass through a vertex.  We then discuss an attempt, not yet successful, at finding a polyhedral analog of Myers' Theorem for smooth surfaces, which relates positive curvature to distances between points.  Along the way we consider some questions about the unfolding of polyhedra (for example, unfolding a cardboard box so that it is flat).  This talk is open to all.

    Zoom Info: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, March 17, 2021 
    Lauren Rose, Bard College
    Online Event  3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    Generalized splines on a graph G with edge weighted by ideals a commutative ring R are R-vertex labelings such that if two vertices share an edge in G, the vertex labels are congruent modulo the edge ideal. When R is a principal ideal domain, we introduce collapsing operations that reduces any simple graph to a single vertex and carries along the edge ideal information. This corresponds to a sequence of surjective maps between the associated spline modules, and leads to an explicit construction of an R-module basis in terms of the edge ideals. We also solve an interpolation problem, i.e., given a partial vertex labeling, when can it can be extended to a generalized spline?

    Zoom: https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09
    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

  • Wednesday, March 3, 2021 
    Pablo Soberón, Baruch College
    Online Event  3:30 pm – 4:30 pm EST/GMT-5
    Given a family of convex sets in R^d, how do we know that their intersection has a large volume or a large diameter?  A large family of results in combinatorial geometry, called Helly-type theorems, characterize families of convex sets whose intersections are not empty.  During this talk we will describe how some bootstrapping arguments allow us to extend classic results to describe when the intersection of a family of convex sets in R^d is quantifiably large.  The work presented in this talk was done in collaboration with undergraduate students.

    Join Zoom Meeting
    https://bard.zoom.us/j/86398169686?pwd=M0pvT25ETmFhbUhkb1FUc2FuaGl0QT09

    Meeting ID: 863 9816 9686
    Passcode: 742619

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Phone: 845-758-7104
Email: [email protected]

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