IBM Corporate Lecture Series

2018

How to Bake Pi: Mathematics Made Tasty

Thursday, November 15, 2018
141 DeBartolo Hall

Mathematics can be tasty! It's a way of thinking, and not just about numbers. In this talk filled with hands-on activities suitable for all ages, Eugenia Cheng, Ph.D., scientist-in-residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will teach surprisingly high-level mathematics by sharing unexpectedly connected examples from music, juggling, and especially baking. Cheng's aim is ride the world of math phobia. In addition to writing the "Everyday Math" column for the Wall Street Journal she is also the author of "How to Bake Pi," which was shortlisted for the 2017 Royal Society of Science Book Prize.

Women in Science Conference

Friday, October 5 to Sunday, October 7, 2018
Jordan Hall of Science

Organized by graduate students for graduate students, there will be poster presentations, keynote speeches, oral presentations, and networking: https://awis.nd.edu/wsc/.

Searching for "Wow:" The art, craft, and joy of writing about science

Saturday, September 29, 2018
101 Jordan Hall of Science
1 p.m.

Washington Post reporter Amy Ellis Nutt writes about neuroscience and mental health, and will share how to cultivate the sense of wonder that is at the heart of all great science articles. She’ll also describe the techniques for writing them. Nutt is the author of three books, including two New York Times’ bestsellers, just received a contract for a fourth, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing in 2011. She has taught at Columbia and Princeton and was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard.

Nuclear physics of stellar explosions

Wednesday, April 25, 2018
118 Nieuwland Science Hall
4 p.m.

Dr. Artemis Spyrou, Associate Professor and Associate Director for Education, Department of Physics, Michigan State University, will answer questions that are driving the field of nuclear astrophysics. The talk will focus on the nuclear physics aspects of heavy element nucleosynthesis in different explosive environments. Dr. Spyrou will present experiments performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), at Michigan State University. The NSCL is a rare isotope beam facility that can give unique access to nuclei involved in astrophysical processes. She will discuss recent experiments, new initiatives, and where we expect to go in the future, with a particular focus on the recent discover of the merging of two neutron stars.

Control and local measurements of the spin chemical potential in a magnetic insulator

Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018
123 Nieuwland Science Hall
4 p.m.

Chunhui Du, Postoctoral fellow, Department of Physics, Harvard University, will discuss single-spin magnetrometry based on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond as a new and generic platform to locally spin chemical potentials. This essentially determines the flow of spin currents. Du will describe he her lab uses the platform to investigate magnons in a magnetic insulator YIG on a 100-nanometer length scale.

Optoelectronics of Hybrid Metal Halide Pervskites for Photovoltaics

Monday, Jan. 15, 2018
118 Nieuwland Science Hall
4 p.m.

Rebecca Milot

Hybrid metal halide perovskites have shown extraordinary success as active layers in solar cells, with power conversion efficiencies rivalling existing silicon technologies. A benefit of perovskites is that they are comprised of low-cost, earth abundant materials, and perovskite thin films are easily synthesized with simple starting materials. Additionally, they exhibit exceptional optoelectronic properties, which include strong absorption across the entire visible spectrum, long charge carrier lifetimes, and high charge-carrier mobilities. Optical-pump/THz-probe (OPTP) spectroscopy has proven to be an essential technique for studying the charge-carrier dynamics and charge-carrier mobility in many of these materials including lead-based, tin-based, two-dimensional, and mixed-halide/mixed-cation perovskites. These studies have determined that the charge-carrier mobility and charge-carrier recombination dynamics are strongly dependent on chemical composition, defect density band structure, and crystallinity.

January 25 - Chunhui Du, Harvard University (More information to come)

2017

Stability in the Homology of Configuration Spaces

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017
127 Hayes-Healy Hall
4 p.m., following the departmental tea at 3:30 p.m. in Hurley Hall lounge, room 257

Jennifer Wilson

Jennifer Wilson, of Stanford University, will illustrate some patterns in the homology of the space F_k(M) of ordered k-tuples of distinct points in a manifold M. For a fixed manifold M, as k increases, we might expect the topology of the configuration spaces F_k(M) to become increasingly complicated. Church and others showed, however, that when M is connected and open, there is a representation-theoretic sense in which the homology groups of these configuration spaces stabilize. In this talk I will explain these stability patterns, and describe higher-order stability phenomena -- relationships between unstable homology classes in different degrees -- established in recent work joint with Jeremy Miller. This project was inspired by work-in-progress of Galatius-Kupers-Randal-Williams.

A Conversation with Lisa Randall

Monday, Sept. 25, 2017
Washington Hall
7-8 p.m.

Lisa Randall

A renowned scientist and author, Professor Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University. Her research connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of matter, as well as explores ways to experimentally test these ideas at the Large Hadron Collider and elswhere.

She will be joined on stage by Notre Dame physicist Ani Aprahamian. A book signing will follow.