On my office door

Normally, office doors are a great place to advertise cool things, post silly cartoons and memes, and show support for movements and initiatives. Since we are currently online, I will move my office door to my website. For students of Ontario Tech, here are some things I think are cool.

Linear Algebra:

My research is in the area of linear algebra. You may have seen linear algebra in your first or second year, but are still a bit puzzled what it's actually for.

  • Here is an excellent YouTube playlist by 3Blue1Brown (Grant Sanderson) which gives a big-picture view of the essence of linear algebra.

  • Here is a link to the most recent publication of IMAGE, which is a magazine run by the International Linear Algebra Society featuring interviews with prominent researchers in this area, book reviews, and a problem corner.

  • Here is a video from back when I was a graduate student, summarizing my research for the 3 Minute Thesis competition.

3MT_video.mp4

I am committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the university environment. One of the biggest barriers to this is our own unconscious bias. To understand more about this, you may find it helpful to watch this short video.

As a mathematician, and in this age of big data, it's increasingly important to consider EDI. I would highly recommend Cathy O'Neil's book Weapons of Math Destruction for many descriptions of when mathematical algorithms perpetuate inequality in the world. Dr. Cathy O'Neil was a mathematics professor at MIT, then worked for a hedge fund, then as a data scientist (unrelated: she also has an excellent blog post on why mathematics research is important).