Daniel Krashen

University of Pennsylvania

Professional Empathy

Public lecture

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

3:15 p.m.

Kemeny 008

Abstract: In this talk I will discuss my own strategies and difficulties with working towards a more inclusive environment in various aspects of my professional career: as a member of the community of mathematics, as a faculty member, a teacher, a mentor and as a colleague.

I’ll focus on particular examples that I hope will be easy to relate to, including hiring, graduate admissions, course scheduling, high school outreach, advising and teaching. I will try to explain how framing these issues through a lens of empathy, human relationships and group membership gives some insight into building processes which support inclusivity, and how this relates to diversity and equity. I will also describe some of the main pitfalls I’ve identified in this process, and the strategies I try to use to deal with them.

NB: PDF version of this announcement (suitable for posting).

Can you hear the shape of a division algebra?

Colloquium

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

3:15 p.m.

Haldeman 041

Abstract: The famous question “can you hear the shape of a drum?” has inspired quite a bit of mathematical activity due to its rich connections with a wide range of fields, from number theory to geometric topology. In this talk, I will describe how this problem has a natural extension to the study of division algebras and describe various recent work in this direction.