Noah Aydin, professor of mathematics, and Marissa Gee, assistant professor of mathematics, will present a double feature of mathematics research for Math Monday, sharing more information on their work and its impact in the greater mathematical community.
Aydin will give a brief introduction to coding theory and talk about the ongoing undergraduate research program at Kenyon and how you might get involved.
Gee will speak on work involving optimal control questions. Mathematical models are powerful tools for predicting the world — given some input, they can tell us about likely outcomes. In some scenarios, there are parameters in the model that we can control, like the rate of fishing when modeling a commercial fishery, or the direction of motion when modeling an autonomous vehicle. Optimal control is the study of how we can choose the parameters that will give us the "best" outcome, like maximizing profit or minimizing cost, based on a particular model. Gee's research uses techniques from math modeling, differential equations, and numerical methods to answer optimal control questions like how a rover can safely navigate the terrain on Mars, or how an animal can find food while avoiding being eaten by a predator.
Join us on Monday, Sept. 30, at 3:10 p.m. in Tomsich 101 (note the new location this week) to hear these exciting presentations and perhaps learn how you too can get involved in mathematics and statistics research hear at Kenyon. We hope to see you there!