Talks

Upcoming talks:

• ICERM, Brown University (November 18-22, 2013)

• Yale University, Geometry & Topology Seminar, April 2013.
  
  
• University of Maryland College Park, Geometry & Topology Seminar, February 2013; slides.
  
  
• Harvard University, Geometry & Dynamics Seminar, February 2013; slides.
  
  
• Indiana University, Geometry Seminar, January 2013; slides.
  
  
• Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), Discrete Geometry seminar, November 2012.
  
  
• University of Bristol (UK), Dynamics Seminar, February 2012.

• Tufts University, Colloquium, February 2013; slides.
  
  
• Colby College, Colloquium, March 2012.

• Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook, July 2013.
  Announcement. I showed these "Dance your Ph.D." videos: Diana Davis (me), Joel Miller, and Peter Liddicoat.
  
  
• Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Math Club, January 2013.
  
  
• Joint Mathematics Meetings, AMS Special Session, January 2013; slides.
  
  
• Summer @ ICERM REU, Brown University, July 2012.
  How to give a math talk. Handout from talk (pdf).

• Oxford University (UK) (December 2012).
  
  
• Brown University (January 2013).
  
  
• Brown University (March 2012).
  
  
• Brown University (September 2011).
  
  
• Brown University (April 2010).

• Bugs, bagels, surfaces and topology (2011, 2012, 2013)
  The world is flat! Or maybe it's spherical -- or is it a torus? We will learn to determine the shape of our world using only string, paper, and common breakfast foods. This talk will be a gentle introduction to the subject of topology. You will also learn an entertaining topological party trick to amaze your friends (or students).

• Exeter math from both sides of the Harkness table (2011, 2012, 2013)
  To date, exactly one person has both learned math using Exeter's word-problem-based curriculum, and returned to teach math at Exeter. I'll talk about my experience on each side of the curriculum, and the differences between being a successful Exeter math student and an effective teacher.

• Dancing about math (2012)
  Some things in math are much better when explained through pictures, rather than in words. Could we take it one step further and explain it through dance, rather than pictures? I recently made a video for the "Dance Your PhD" competition, which explains my PhD thesis through dance. I'll show how I turned my theorem into a compelling video, and then as a group, we'll turn a better-known geometry theorem into a dance.

• Thesis defense, Williams College, May 2007: Alpha-Regular Stick Knots
  Abstract: A stick knot is a closed chain of line segments attached end to end. An alpha-regular stick knot has unit-length segments where the angle at each vertex is the same, some angle that we call alpha. If we have found an example of a stick knot that is very nearly alpha-regular, with sticks that are very close to unit length and angles that are very close to alpha, we would like to say that a stick knot exists of the same knot type, where the sticks are exactly unit length and the angles are exactly alpha. I will discuss my results on this problem.

• Undergraduate colloquium, Williams College, September 2006: An elementary proof of Krull's Intersection Theorem
  Abstract: To do analysis on commutative rings, we need a metric, and to prove that the distance function we have is actually a metric, we need to show that it satisfies the three conditions for a metric. Two are easy to prove, but the third requires Krull's Intersection Theorem. Standard proofs of this theorem require advanced knowledge and complicated lemmas, but I'll explain a new, simpler proof that requires only abstract algebra. Photo of talk.

• Hudson River Undergraduate Math Conference, April 2006: Isoperimetric Regions in Sectors of the Gauss Plane: Eliminating Monsters
  Abstract: The cheapest way to enclose area in the Euclidean plane is by a circle, but what if the plane has varying density? What if we only consider a pie-shaped sector of the plane with varying density? I'll show how to eliminate shapes (such as the circle) that we now know cannot be minimizing, and give conjectures and evidence for the best shape.

• Phillips Exeter Academy Math Club, 2005: What is math research?
  Abstract: What do mathematicians work on? What does "math research" really mean, and what opportunities are there for high school and college students to do it? To explain the answers, I'll talk about some research I did last summer.

• MathFest 2005, Albuquerque, NM: Curvature in the Gauss Plane and Minimizing Curves
  Abstract: We consider constant-curvature curves in the Euclidean plane with Gaussian density. [I won the AMS student speaker prize for this talk.]

• MAA regional meeting at Bates College, June 2005: The Hutchings function in Gauss space
  Abstract: Current work on double bubbles in Gauss space (Euclidean space with Gaussian density) requires showing that a certain "Hutchings" function is positive.

• Hudson River Undergraduate Math Conference, April 2005: Latin squares: permutations inside the box
  Abstract: A Latin square is an nxn grid of symbols in which each of n symbols appears once in each row and each column. We will discuss orthogonality, Cayley tables, and you will discover how Latin squares apply to tire rotation.

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