The Robert Calderbank and Ingrid Daubechies Visiting Scholars program brings mathematicians to build multi-dimensional relationships with Duke Mathematics. Each Visiting Scholar is invited to make two one-week visits to Duke Mathematics, over a two-year span. During each visit, a Visiting Scholar is invited to collaborate, discuss, and mingle with our faculty and students. They are also invited to give one or more talks in the styles of their choice, such as: a public lecture, a specialized research seminar, a department-wide colloquium, a talk about math education, a discussion about community, a guest lecture or mini-course as part of a graduate or undergraduate course. By design, the pacing and flexibility of these visits encourages the development of long-lasting, personalized interactions and collaborations. This program is named in honor of our colleagues Robert Calderbank and Ingrid Daubechies, in appreciation of their vision for mathematical discovery as a community enterprise with room for everyone to join in.
Funding is provided by the Dean of Trinity College and the Provost of Duke University, and administrative support is provided by The Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke.
Events
Dr. Chad Topaz
Duke Math DEI Spring Colloquium
Thursday, March 28th at 2pm in Physics 130
We are very excited to welcome to our department Dr. Chad Topaz, Professor of Complex Systems at Williams College, who will be giving the Duke Math DEI Spring Colloquium. Dr. Topaz is the co-founder of the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (QSIDE), a research-to-action institute working at the intersection of social justice and data science.
Tea Time with Dr. Chad Topaz
Thursday, March 28th at 3pm in the Math Lounge (Physics 101)
We will also host a special tea time following Dr. Topaz’s Colloquium. Please spread the word with interested students and folks in other departments who may be interested in attending.
About the Eponyms
The Organization of Robert Calderbank and Ingrid Daubechies Scholars (ORCID Scholars) is named in honor of our colleagues Robert and Ingrid, in appreciation of their vision for mathematical discovery as a community enterprise with room for everyone to join in.
Robert Calderbank is the Charles S. Sydnor Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Mathematics, and Director of the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke. Ingrid Daubechies is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke.
Current ORCID Scholars
Ellen Eischen
Professor of Mathematics, University of Oregon
ORCID Scholar 2023-2025
Ellen Eischen is a professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon. While she has broad interests, her research especially focuses on number theory. She also enjoys connecting with people and communicating about math, for example by employing skills from her training in improvisational theater. She has created workshops to train faculty and students in principles of improvisation for engaging with broader audiences, organized the Creativity Counts exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art to share a creative side of math with the broader public, and developed the APAW workshop to facilitate diverse research collaborations. The impact of her museum-focused work continues both through her service on the Advisory Board of the newly forming Seattle Universal Math Museum and through the online version of Creativity Counts, which quickly became the JSMA’s most visited virtual exhibit. In recognition of some of her contributions, she was recently named a Fellow of the AWM. Support for her activities has included an NSF CAREER Award, several other NSF research grants, and the Williams Fund.
Eischen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University. She was then awarded a Bell Labs Graduate Research Fellowship, which supported her work on her PhD in mathematics at the University of Michigan, as well as extended visits at Columbia University and Princeton University. Before moving to the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Eischen held positions at the University of North Carolina and Northwestern University.
Ronny Hadani
Associate Professor of Mathematics, University of Texas at Austin
ORCID Scholar 2023-2025
Ronny Hadani is an associate professor in the Mathematics Department of the University of Texas at Austin. He is a co-inventor of the OTFS modulation technique and is a co-founder of Cohere Technologies, a company pioneering OTFS based communication technologies. Hadani holds a PhD in pure mathematics from Tel-Aviv University and a Master degree in applied mathematics from The Weizmann Institute of Science.
Emille Davie Lawrence
Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
ORCID Scholar 2023-2025
Emille Davie Lawrence is Senior Director for the Black Achievement Success and Engagement initiative and associate professor at the University of San Francisco. She earned her B.S. in mathematics from Spelman College and her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Georgia. She has also been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara and an Assistant Professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her research focuses on topological properties of spatial graphs. She has been recognized for her work in the mathematics community as the 2021 Association for Women in Mathematics Service Award winner, as a recipient of the 2021 Karen EDGE Fellowship for mid-career mathematicians, and also as a 2022 MAA Euler Book Prize winner.
Chad Topaz
Professor of Complex Systems, Williams College
ORCID Scholar 2023-2025
Chad Topaz is an applied mathematician and data scientist at Williams College, CU–Boulder, and Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. Chad spent several decades studying complex and nonlinear systems in the natural sciences, including resonant fluid waves, chemical reactions, and biological aggregations. In more recent years, Chad has focused intensively on applying quantitative tools to expose and remedy social injustice. He is also an avid follower of scholarly research in education studies and educational psychology. A partial list of topics that Chad is enthusiastic to discuss (at any level of technical detail) includes:
- Social justice, in particular, equity/diversity/inclusion with respect to race, gender, disability status, sexual orientation
- Data science
- Data science used to promote social justice
- Topological data analysis
- Self-organization and pattern formation in nature and society (biological swarms, chemical patterns, fluid waves, much more)
- Justice in policing
- Algorithms in the criminal justice system
- Criminal sentencing disparities
- Bail
- Public data transparency
- Equity and inclusion in arts and culture (art museums, Hollywood films, fashion, popular music)
- College/university campus diversity and affirmative action
- Diversity in STEM in higher education
- Anti-racist and inclusive teaching
- Evidence-based pedagogy
- LGBTQ+ issues
Robin Wilson
Professor of Mathematics, Loyola Marymount University
ORCID Scholar 2023-2025
Dr. Robin Wilson is a Professor of Mathematics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He earned his PhD in Mathematics at the University of California, Davis, and prior to Loyola Marymount he served as Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Cal Poly Pomona. Dr. Wilson has held appointments as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Mathematics at UC Santa Barbara, and Visiting Professor positions in Mathematics at Georgetown University and Pomona College. His scholarship includes both research in low-dimensional topology and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr. Wilson’s work in the scholarship of teaching and learning focuses on issues of equity and access for students of color in the K-12 and undergraduate mathematics classrooms. His mathematics interests in low-dimensional topology focus on problems in knot theory and spatial graph theory.
He is also Co-Director of the NSF Bolstering the Advancement of Masters in Mathematics (BAMM!) Program and currently serves as Co-PI of the NSF Storytelling for Mathematics Learning and Engagement Project. Dr. Wilson serves on the board of the National Association of Mathematicians and has helped chair the Diversity Committee at the Park City Math Institute, and the Human Resources Advisory Committee at the Math Sciences Research Institute. He has also served as Director of the California Math Project at Cal Poly Pomona, a program that supports the professional development of K-12 teachers.