Posts

The evolving role of AI in mathematical discovery

  The last five years have seen AI-driven breakthroughs in research-level mathematics, prompting excitement and discussion about the future of mathematics research. On Monday, May 4 th , Helen Jenne (Whitman ’13, Data Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) will give an overview of these developments, from AI’s role in rigorously verifying proofs to its use in discovering interesting mathematical constructions and formulating conjectures. AI for mathematics extends well beyond prompting a GPT to prove a theorem; in fact, the field has seen many success stories from smaller, targeted models. The first half of the talk will provide a survey of the current landscape, and the second half will discuss recent work applying an LLM-based approach called evolutionary program synthesis to the challenge of finding combinatorial bijections. Most examples will be drawn from graph theory and combinatorics, but no prior background in these subjects will be assumed. This...
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Under the Hood: The Math, the Magic, and the Messy Reality of Large Language Models

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You've used ChatGPT. You've probably been amazed, and maybe a little unsettled, by what it can do. But what is actually happening when you hit send? On Monday, April 13, 4pm, Olin 301 , Todd Hendry (Whitman '00, Partner Software Engineer at Microsoft) pulls back the curtain on large language models, explaining how they are trained on vast corpora of text, what "learning" actually means mathematically, and why building and evaluating these systems at scale is harder than it looks. We will touch on the core ideas, including transformers, loss functions, and reinforcement learning from human feedback, without requiring anything beyond calculus and curiosity. Todd will share what it is like to work at the intersection of Microsoft and OpenAI, along with the kinds of problems that researchers and engineers are actively working on.         Bio:  Todd Hendry is a Partner Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he works on large language model training and eva...
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A Tale of Two Woodpeckers: Soundscapes Reveal Divergent Responses to Forest Management in the Blue Mountains

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      On Monday, December 8 , Ben Vernasco, Research Scientist & Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology at Whitman College will discuss how Earth’s biodiversity is currently being transformed by the dramatic changes humans are imposing on the natural world. Passive acoustic monitoring is an emerging field of study that combines simple technologies, rapidly developing neural networks, and quantitative methodologies to measure soundscapes across broad geographic areas and document such changes in ecosystems around the world. In this talk, Professor Vernasco will share his collaborative efforts that combine passive acoustic monitoring, neural networks, remote sensing, and Bayesian hierarchical models to provide an unprecedented level of detail about the bird communities of the Blue Mountains. He will highlight how two ecologically contrasting woodpeckers—one thriving in dense, fire-suppressed forests and the other dependent on large, fire-maintained pines—reveal the lega...
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Data Consulting & Mathematics

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    On Monday, September 29 , Nathaniel Larson '19 will share how he generally applies math to his data consulting work and then delve into his work experience in one branch of mathematics: knowledge graphs and how they can be used to identify fraud, improve knowledge base searching algorithms, and solve other business problems. A mathematical foundation in graphs and graph theory can help us understand why graph databases are efficient ways to store and retrieve complex interrelated data, and how certain patterns--like between-ness, centrality, modularity and more--help us to identify commonalities between groups or find anomalies. Learn more about how data science works in the business world, and how Whitties learning math in a liberal arts setting may be well-positioned for a career in tech consulting. Bio:   Nathaniel has worked for over 6 years with Slalom Consulting, a global technology consulting firm headquartered in Seattle. He speciali...
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Counted Out

The film Counted Out shows us the power of math in our society, our economy, and our democracy. At 7:00pm on March 31st in Maxey Hall on the Whitman College Campus in Walla Walla, WA, the Whitman College Department of Mathematics & Statistics will take part in Counted Out’s worldwide movement to re-imagine math with a free screening of the award winning film Counted Out. In our current information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get — all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand, or even notice. But whether we know it or not, our numeric literacy — whether we can speak the language of math — is a critical determinant of social and economic power. Counted Out shows what’s at risk if we keep the status quo. Do we want an America in which most of us don’t see ourselves “math people”? Where math proficiency go...
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Grad School, Conferences, and Networking 101

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  On Monday, March 3 at 4 pm in Olin 201 Madeleine Sherry ’24 will talk about her experience going to a math conference as an undergrad at Whitman, the importance of networking in developing ideas, finding potential career paths, and creating connections, as well as my insight into grad school life and the application/decision process. There will be plenty of time to answer questions, so hopefully, this session will be helpful to any students interested in pursuing further education or getting ready for what comes next after graduation! Bio:  Madeleine Sherry ’24 is currently a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in statistics at Oregon State University. Madeleine majored in Mathematics and minored in German Studies and Data Science during her time at Whitman College. She was also a part of the women’s lacrosse team and served as the captain of the team her senior year.  Beyond athletics, Madeleine was a Delta Gamma sorority member and was part of Whitman's Pa...
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Communicating Statistically

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  On Monday, February 24 at 4pm in Olin 201 Benjamin Seashore Hobson ’23 will talk about communicating statistically, as he does in his job as a player development analyst with the New York Mets. Benji works with the rest of the Mets analytics team to perform data-driven research to find opportunities for improvement for players within the Mets organization and then collaborates with coaches and player development leadership to incorporate those findings into individual player plans. He will share examples of how he shares statistical insights with coaches and players with a broad range of statistics and data knowledge levels. Benji will also discuss how his time at Whitman prepared him to both perform data analysis and communicate with a diverse set of teammates.   Bio:  Benjamin Seashore Hobson ’23 is currently a player development analyst for the New York Mets. He majored in Mathematics and minored in Gender Studies and Hispanic Studies during his time at Whitman Coll...
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