January 04, 2013

The annual Joint Mathematics Meetings is the largest gathering of mathematicians in the world, primarily sponsored by the MAA (Mathematical Association of America) and AMS (American Mathematical Society).  The 2013 conference is January 9-12 in San Diego, CA, and features six MAA Invited Addresses.  Davidson's Prof. Tim Chartier was invited to deliver one of these prestigious presentations.  Dr. Chartier's Thursday morning address is entitled Thinking Linearly about Data.

Abstract:  From sports to social networks to movie ratings, data sets ever increase in size and availability. Mining such masses of information for meaning is common and an active area of research in science and business. This talk will discuss techniques in ranking and clustering that rely on linear algebra. Recent work will be discussed as well as how to present such work at the undergraduate level for research and in classes for math majors and nonmajors.