Kieval Lecture Series

The Kieval Lecture Series is funded through a bequest of the late Dr. Harry S. Kieval ’36, a longtime professor of mathematics at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, who died in 1994. In addition to this lecture series, his estate provides funding to Cornell University for a similar lecture in physics, as well as annual prizes awarded to outstanding seniors in both mathematics and physics.

Current and Upcoming Lectures

The Kieval Lecture will be held on April 23, 2025 in 228 Malott Hall at 4:30 p.m.

There will be a reception from 4:00 - 4:30 in 532 Malott Hall

“Beyond Computation: The P versus NP question”
Speaker:  Michael Sipser, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Donner Professor of Mathematics

View poster with title/abstract. 

For accommodations contact Heather Peterson.
 

Previous Lectures in the Series

• Jordan Ellenberg
  Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell
  John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics
  Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin

  Kieval Lecture Poster

  This event was organized in coordination with the Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large Program. The event also included an ADW-PAL keynote public event book talk:  "From mosquitos to ChatGPT -- the birth and strange life of the random talk" with Professor Ellenberg.

• Nancy Kopell, Boston University
  Brain Rhythms in Health and Disease (May 2022)
• Dylan Thurston, Indiana University Bloomington
  The Wilds of the Mandelbrot Set (April 2021)
• Pamela Harris, Williams College
  Invisible Lattice Points (October 2018)
• Moon Duchin, Tufts University
  Political Geometry: Mathematical Interventions in Gerrymandering (October 2017)
• Frank Farris, Santa Clara University
  The Mathematics of SymmetryScapes (September 2016)
• Dror Bar-Natan, University of Toronto
  Knots in Three and Four Dimensions (September 2015)
• Arthur T. Benjamin, Harvey Mudd College:
  Secrets of Mental Math (March 2013)
• Richard Schwartz, Brown University:
  Shapes Emerging from Subdivisions of Triangles (November 2011)
• Peter Winkler, Dartmouth College:
  How Puzzles Reshape Our Intuition (November 2010)
• Keith Devlin, Stanford University (executive director of the H-STAR Institute):
  Using Mathematics to Solve Life's Mysteries (September 2009)
• Allen Knutson, University of California at San Diego:
  The Mathematics of Juggling (October 2007)
• Richard Hamilton, Columbia University:
  The Past and Future of Geometric Flows (September 2007)
• Persi Diaconis, Stanford University:
  Mathematics and Magic Tricks (September 2005)
• Jeff Weeks, Topology and Geometry Software:
  The Shape of Space (April 2004)
• Jordan Ellenberg, Princeton University:
  The Mathematics of Set -or- Everything I Know About Fourier Analysis I Learned from Playing Cards(April 2002)
  (sponsored by the Student Activities Finance Commission)
• Richard Guy, University of Calgary:
  Fun from Mathematics & Mathematics from Fun (November 2001)
• Colin Adams, Williams College:
  Real Estate in Hyperbolic Space: Investment Opportunities in the Next Millenium (September 2000)
• Peter Sarnak, Princeton University:
  Hilbert's Eleventh Problem: Representing Integers by Quadratic Forms (April 2000)
  (sponsored by the Student Activities Finance Commission)
• Joan Birman, Columbia University:
  Parametrizing Knots (November 1999)
• John Milnor, SUNY Stony Brook:
  Pasting Together Julia Sets (October 1998)