Events

The Department of Mathematics sponsors a regular colloquium that hosts several talks by external speakers every year and a general faculty seminar for talks by faculty and students. Seminars are listed below after the colloquia.

Mathematics Colloquium

On Thursday, February 13, 2025, Dr. George Mohler, Fitzgerald Professor of Computer Science at Boston College, presented a colloquium lecture on Using data science to understand patterns of social harm. 

Abstract: In this talk we give three examples of how statistical modeling and machine learning can be applied to social harm data.  We first investigate the relationship between law enforcement drug seizures and subsequent opioid overdoses.  Using two-sample randomization tests, we show that seizures lead to an increased risk of overdoses nearby in space and time. We then discuss implications of this effect and potential interventions that might be conducted.  In the second example, we use a statistical model to understand the recent "Kia Challenge" on TikTok.  We then use the model, combined with information on past car theft waves, to forecast Kia and Sonata thefts in Los Angeles out to 2050.  In the last example, we discuss a project on building low-cost gunshot detectors for community violence interruption workers in Denver.  Using audio transformer neural networks on a Raspberry Pi, we are able to produce accurate devices for under $200.  The devices are currently being tested for their efficacy in violence interruption efforts.

Recent Mathematics Colloquium Talks

Date Topic Speaker
Feb 13, 2025 Using data science to understand patterns of social harm

Dr. George Mohler,
Boston College
Apr 24, 2024 Arboreal Galois groups: Introduction

Dr. Robert Benedetto,
Amherst College 
Apr 17, 2024 Thicket density

Dr. Siddharth Bhaskar,
James Madison University
Apr 3, 2024 Finite element exterior calculus in four-dimensional space

Dr. David Williams, 
Penn State University
Apr 3, 2024 Finite-dimensional reduction of dissipative PDEs

Dr. Yanqiu Guo,
Florida International University
Mar 29, 2024 Patterns, algorithms, and your friends

Dr. Emily Ecans, 
Brigham Young University
Mar 8, 2024 Finite expression method: A symbolic approach for scientific machine learning

Dr. Haizhao Yang,
University of Maryland 
Feb 14, 2024 Biostatistics: Applications of statistics in biomedicine and public health

Dr. Ming T. Tan,
Georgetown Medical Center

Seminar Meetings

The Mathematics Seminar is the venue where Towson faculty and students report on their research activities. In addition several research groups have research seminars in their respective research areas:

  • ASRM Seminar (coordinated by Min Ji):
    Meets on Fridays at 10 am
  • Number Theory Seminar (coordinated by A. Kumchev and N. McNew):
    Meets on Tuesdays at 5 pm in YR 320.

Recent and Upcoming Seminars

  • March 11, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
    David Hubbard will give a talk on Computing the p-part of the class group.

    Abstract: The class group of a number field is a well-known important invariant
    orignally appearing as a measure of how far the field was from having unique
    factorization but has since been the object of study in its own interest.
    In a cyclic degree-\(p\) extension of number fields \(K/k\), for a prime \(p\), the
    \(p\)-part of the class group \(C_K\) of \(K\) has a very interesting internal structure.
    For instance, the genus group and the ambiguous subgroup of \(C_K\) are well-known objects. 
    We present techniques from an interesting 1940 paper by Eizi Inaba on
    computing the \(p\)-part of \(C_K\). One remarkable thing about these techniques
    is that the calculations almost all take place in the base field \(k\) rather than
    the field \(K\) whose \(p\)-part of the class group we are computing. Inaba’s paper was before modern computers, and we give results from an ongoing implementation of the techniques in Magma.
  • March 4, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
    Vishal Gupta, University of Delaware, gave a talk on the Minimum spectral radius in a given class of graphs.
  • February 25, 2025: Number Theory Seminar.
    Dr. William Craig, US Naval Academy, gave a talk on Quasimodular forms, q-multiple zeta values, and partitions.
  • November 21, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
    Alexander Kalogirou, University of South Carolina, gave a talk on Disjoint covering systems.  
  • November 15, 2024: ASRM Speaker Series. 
    Shelby Cimino, ASA, gave a talk on Actuarial modeling: An overview.
  • September 10, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
    Dr. Edinah Gnang, Johns Hopkins University, gave a talk on All trees on n edges decompose the complete bipartite graph \(K_{n,n}\).
  • August 20, 2024: Number Theory Seminar.
    Dr. Harald Helfgott, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu, gave a talk on Expansion, divisibility and parity.

Recent Mathematics Seminar & Sabbatical Talks

  • On February 24, 2025, Dr. Sebastian Calvo presented a seminar on the Waldschmidt constant of complex reflection groups.
  • On October 16, 2024, Dr. Min Deng presented a sabbatical lecture on Bayesian Inference for the Loss Models via Mixture Priors. 
  • On September 30, 2024, Dr. Melike Kara Atas presented a sabbatical lecture on Improving Pre-Service Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Fraction Concepts. 
  • On April 21, 2024, Dr. Nathan McNew presented a sabbatical lecture on The Middle Prime Factor of Integers.
  • On April 15, 2024, Ms. Lily Glushakow-Smith gave a seminar on Developmental Math: Is Our Approach Serving the Aspirations of Underprepared Students?
  • On March 25, 2024, Dr. Daniel Freese gave a seminar on Periodic Minimal Surfaces from Gluing Helicoids.
  • On March 11, 2024, Dr. Miriam Parnes gave a seminar on Indivisibility for Classes of Graphs.