The Everhart Lecture Series is a forum to encourage interdisciplinary interaction among graduate students and faculty, to share ideas about recent research developments, problems and controversies, and to recognize the exemplary presentation and research abilities of Caltech's graduate students. Lecturers discuss scientific topics at a level suitable for graduate students and faculty from all fields while addressing current research issues.
Each fall, three graduate-student lecturers are selected to present their work as part of the Everhart Lecture Series based on each student's:
Speakers receive a $500 honorarium and recognition at graduation. Streaming video recordings of previous Everhart lectures can be viewed online at the Caltech Today Theater.
Discrete Differential Geometry: Helping Machines (and People) Think Clearly about Shape
The world around us is full of shapes: airplane wings and cell phones, brain tumors and rising loaves of bread,
fossil records and freeform architectural surfaces. To a large extent, our ability to master these domains is
limited by our capacity to design, process, and analyze geometry. But like much of mathematics, geometry makes
liberal use of infinity – a concept that is alien to machines with finite memory and limited precision. The
driving force behind discrete differential geometry (DDG) is to develop a language that can be easily understood
by a computer, yet still faithfully captures the way shape behaves in nature. A valuable consequence of constructing
algorithmic descriptions is that real-world phenomena like “curvature” and “holonomy” (which traditionally demand expert
terminology) can now be easily conveyed to anyone whose vocabulary includes words like “sum” and “triangle.”
In this talk I explore recent discoveries in the rapidly growing field of DDG, and demonstrate how a clear geometric perspective can lead to simpler, more efficient algorithms that are numerically robust and exhibit good scaling behavior. A somewhat remarkable fact is that a wide variety of seemingly dissimilar questions can be answered by computing solutions to a simple linear system known as a discrete Poisson equation. For instance: what’s the shortest path from one point to another on a curved surface? How can you construct a flow with only the requested sources and sinks? And how does one manipulate surfaces without distorting important features like angles? These questions are deeply rooted in a number of classical and beautiful topics from physics and geometry such as heat flow, parallel transport, holomorphic functions, and the Dirac equation, which will all be explained in simple geometric terms.
Navigating Without Eyes or Ears: A Worm's Tale of Survival Using the Sense of Smell
Nematodes are the most abundant animal on the earth and occupy virtually every known niche and habitat,
from steamy South American jungles to the seemingly barren Antarctic Dry Valleys. Though best known by
the ‘free-living’ model nematode, C. elegans, there are numerous nematode parasites, many of which cause
human suffering directly through disease or indirectly through crop loss and damage.
Looking for more examples? Past Everhart lectures can be found here.
The 2012 Everhart Lecturers have been selected. Applications for the 2013 Everhart Lecture Series will be solicited in Fall 2012.
Complete an application form along with a brief, sealed letter of recommendation. Letters should comment on the nominee's research and speaking skills, as well as state how long and in what capacity you have known the nominee. Feel free to nominate a graduate student regardless of whether they are presently completing an application. Self-nominations are also allowed.
Applicants must be registered Caltech graduate students at the beginning of the fall term during which they apply.
Applications must include six copies of the following:
Applications will be accepted through Friday, November 18, 2011. Top nominees will be interviewed the period of 12/12/2011 to 12/13/2011, and will be asked to present a brief (10 minute) version of their talk to a selection committee of graduate students from various fields. Final selections will be made by mid-December.
Send applications and nominations to:
Everhart Lecture Series
c/o Yun Elisabeth Wang
MC 114-96
Please email the ELS committee chair, Yun Elisabeth Wang, for inquiries.
All enrolled graduate students may apply, including those not planning to graduate this year. Applicants must have been enrolled as a Caltech graduate student at the beginning of the term during which they apply.
Sponsored by the Graduate Student Council and the Caltech Student Affairs