Tara Holm to Present J.C. Eaves Lecture in Mathematics

Tara Holm, a mathematician and professor at Cornell University, will deliver the 2018-19 J.C. Eaves Lecture. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Mathematics, the lecture will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 21, in 208 White Hall Classroom Building.

Holm, a 2012 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and former Visiting Fellow at both Oxford and Princeton, will deliver a lecture on “Understanding Symplectic Geometry Through Polytopes and Lattice Points.”

“Symplectic geometry, the natural geometry of classical mechanics, is floppier than Riemannian geometry, but more rigid than topology. I will give an overview of this floppy/rigid spectrum,” Holm said. “I will conclude with how some of my recent work, joint with Daniel Cristofaro-Gardiner, Alessia Mandini and Ana Rita Pires, comes to feature continued fractions, counting lattice points, and the Philadelphia subway system.”

Along with her work at Cornell, Holm is the president/CEO of Pro Mathematica Arte, a nonprofit corporation that runs the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics and Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education. Her research in symplectic geometry has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Simons Foundation. She has been active in efforts to improve undergraduate mathematics education through her work with the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics and other organizations.

The lecture is part of the J.C. Eaves Undergraduate Excellence Fund, which brings speakers to campus to participate in the undergraduate mathematics program. The fund is supported by a generous gift from James C. Eaves Jr. and Mary Eaves, the son and daughter-in-law of J.C. Eaves. J.C. Eaves was a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at UK and served as chair of the department from 1953 to 1963.