Mathematical Sciences Foundry

Monday December 5th at 4pm in Olin 201. Alex Robinson, Manager at Analysis Group , will discuss a career path in economic consulting, examples of mathematics, economics, statistics, and computer programming that economic consultants encounter every day in their work, and connections between Whitman coursework and the work of a professional economist. Alex will discuss the foundations of how economists and government agencies analyze horizontal mergers and their impacts on prices. She will also discuss how to think about measuring the potential global economic impact of the metaverse before it exists. BIO: Alex is currently a Manager at Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm that specializes in the application of microeconomics, econometrics, and statistics to the analysis of complex business disputes. Since joining Analysis Group in 2017, Alex has conducted analyses on antitrust and competition issues across a range of industries, including technology, health care, ...

Monday November 14th at 4pm in Olin 201. What makes the quantum world so bizarre and interesting? We will take a peek into the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement -- strange correlations between particles that are not explainable in a classical world which can exist arbitrarily far distances apart. What was called "spooky action at a distance" by Einstein in 1947 was the focus of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics which honors Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their pioneering work experimenting and demonstrating the bizarre feature of quantum entanglement. We will discuss why quantum is different, and along the way lay out some historical context and talk about the work done by the laureates. And it's not all austere, we will also see how entanglement can be used for some very powerful and cool things like quantum computing and quantum teleportation.   BIO: Ashmeet Singh is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Whitman College. He is a theo...

On Monday November 7th at 4pm in Olin 201 , Joy Nina Nampaso ‘23 and Ahmed Elsayed ‘23 will host a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) information session. REUs are paid research opportunities that are available during the summer at dozens of colleges and universities across the United States every year. They are open to all students, not just students from those institutions. REUs are a great way to get research experience in an area of interest. They are competitive programs so winning one is also a great resume builder. They also provide an opportunity to live in a different part of the country. Joy and Ahmed are both Student Career Advisors in the Career and Community Engagement Center, and they frequently put on career development workshops and information sessions to support fellow Whitman students. During the REU session, they will provide an overview of the REU process and walk through important aspects of the application process that students should be aware of. Ahme...