What is Seminar?

The Mathematics Program has two seminars: The Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar, and the Graduate Mathematics Seminar.  The seminars consist of invited lectures on contemporary mathematics and applications of mathematics to other areas of study and life. Topics have included mathematics education, physics, mathematics research, and interdisciplinary applications of mathematics, like biological and ecological mathematical modeling.

The Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar is held during Math 499: Senior Colloquium, 4:30-5:20PM, on certain days (see the schedule below), in Sierra Hall 1411.  The Graduate Mathematics Seminar is held every Monday 6:00-7:00PM in Sierra Hall 2411. Everyone is invited to attend! 

The Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar is sponsored by Instructional Related Activities Funds.

What are the strengths of this series?

The seminars give our students the opportunity to see math at work. There is a good portion of our enrolled undergraduates that are interested in teaching. While we make sure to bring in speakers that discuss mathematics education, we also want our students to experience other fields. We do so by exposing them to the careers in mathematical research, academia, and industry via our speakers. Our students have the opportunity to follow up with the speakers if they wish, thus widening their network. 

Visit for upcoming Spring 2019 talks:

Fall 2018 Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar in Sierra Hall 1411

• April 8, 2019: "Fitting Classical Mathematical Models to Small Data Sets from Lewis Lung and Human Breast Carcinomas" by Dr. Judith Canner, CSU Monterey Bay
• February 18, 2019: "Fractals, Dimensions, and Pascal's Triangle" by Kevin Howe, CSU Channel Islands
• February 11, 2019: "Exploring the Universe with Gravitational Waves" by Dr. Brittany Kamai, Cal Tech

Fall 2018 Graduate Mathematics Seminar in Sierra Hall 2411

• April 29, 2019: "" by Dr. Vladimir Makarov, CSU Channel Islands
• April 22, 2019: "" by Dr. Eduardo Mora-Donato, CSU Channel Islands
• April 15, 2019: "The Secret behind the Squiggles: A Guitar with Optimally Curved Frets" by Dr. Jordan Schettler, San Jose State University
• April 8, 2019: "The effect of Statistical Error Model Formulation on the Fit and Selection of Mathematical Models of Tumor Growth for Small Sample Sizes" by Dr. Judith Canner, CSU Monterey Bay
• March 25, 2019: "Skein Relations and Knot Theory: from Topology to DNA" by Dr. Crombecque, University of Southern California
• March 11, 2019: "Mathematics in Sabbatical-land: Rings, Closures, and Prime Numbers" by Dr. Jesse Elliott, CSU Channel Islands
• March 5, 2019: "Deep learning in LiDAR and how mathematical ideas can help us in machine learning" by Dr. Francis Patricia Medina, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Please open flyer for different time and location)
• February 25, 2019: "Determination of the Shape of a Human Vocal Tract from Speech Sounds" by Dr. Tuncay Aktosun, University of Texas at Arlington
• February 18, 2019: "Cyberthreats: what can a mathematician do about it?" by Dr. Michael Soltys, CSU Channel Islands 
• February 11, 2019: "How do we capture more gravitational wave events from Earth?" by Dr. Brittany Kamai, Cal Tech
• February 4, 2019: "Using Mathematics in Service of Conservation: Matrices and Sea Turtles" by Dr. Jason Miller, CSU Channel Islands

Past seminars:

Fall 2018 Undergraduate Mathematics Seminar

Fall 2018 Graduate Mathematics Seminar

• October 15, 2018: "" by Dr. Melike Sirlanci, Cal Tech
• October 8, 2018: "" by Dr. Christopher Ograin, UCSB
• October 1, 2018: "" by Dr. Jeffrey Stopple, UCSB
• September 24, 2018: "" by Dr. Delil Martinez, Cal Lutheran University
• September 17, 2018: "" by Demirkaya Emre, USC
• September 10, 2018: "" by Dr. Cynthia Flores, CSUCI

Spring 2018 Semester

• April 9, 2018: "Modeling of an Alcohol Biosensor Problem with Numerical Results" by Melike Sirlanci, USC
• March 26, 2018: "The Beauty of Mathematics and Its Reflections in Everyday Life" by Jarmila Nguyen, CSU Channel Islands
• March 12, 2018: "Case Studies in Predictive Modeling Applications in Health Care" by Dr. Vladimir Makarov, CSU Channel Islands
• March 12, 2018: "Case Studies in Predictive Modeling Applications in Health Care" by Dr. Vladimir Makarov, CSU Channel Islands
• March 5, 2018: "Computational Biology: Student International Research Experience" by Dr. Tatiana Tatarinova, La Verne
• February 26, 2018: "What Should a Digital Microscope Do?" by Dr. Brian Rasnow, CSU Channel Islands and Etaluma Inc.
• February 12, 2018: "Linear Representations using the Left Multiplication Map" by Ricardo Suarez, University of Madrid

Fall 2017 Semester

• November 20,2017: "Student Presentations" (PDF, 1.007MB) by  Kayla Roberts, Natalie Huerta, Marie Conteras, Roberts Arotunian, Ty, Cesar Manzo, Dale Perrizolo, David Lary, Luke Burgess, and James Kovacs, CSU Channel Islands
• October 23, 2017: "An overview of community detection algorithms on graphs" by Dr. Vitalii Ostrovskyi, Omaze
• October 9, 2017: "Understanding Pre-College Student Attitudes toward STEM through Statistical Methods" by Dr. Alana Unfried, CSU Monterey Bay
• September 25, 2017: "Calculus on fractals" by Andrea Arauz, PhD candidate at UC Riverside
• September 18, 2017: "Identifying Bats with Mathematics" by Dr. Jason Miller, CSU Channel Islands

Spring 2017 Semester

• April 17,2017: "Asking Good Questions: Thinking Mathematically is your Super Power!" (PDF, 1MB) by Dr. Cynthia Wyels, CSU Channel Islands
• March 13,2017: "Maximizing Brain Potential for Success in Mathematics" (PDF, 705KB) by Jarmila Nguyen, CSU Channel Islands
• March 6,2017: "Newton-type Methods for Unconstrained Optimization" (PDF, 2MB) by Dr. Melisa Hendrata, CSU Los Angeles
• February  20,2017: "Central Schemes for Nonlinear PDEs: Implementation, Applications, and Visualizations" (PDF, 7.3MB) by Dr. Jorge Balbas, CSU Northridge
• January 30, 2017: "Climb the Highest Mountain: A Review of Numerical Optimizations Techniques" (PDF, 303KB) by Dr. William Southwell, Brigham Young University

Fall 2016 Semester

• November 21, 2016: "Three Ways of Generalizing Unique Factorization Domains" (PDF, 492KB) by Dr. Hwankoo Kim, Hoseo University
• October 10, 2016: "An In Depth Look At Our Old Friend: The Exponential Function y = eax"  (PDF, 259KB) by Dr. Alicia Machuca, Texas Women's University
• September 19, 2016: " An Introduction into Fractal Geometry" (PDF, 264KB) by Dr. John Rock, Cal Poly Pomona

Spring 2016 Semester

• April 25, 2016: “Mathematical Meanings: An investigation into ways of thinking about average rate of change and consequences for teaching” (PDF, 228KB) by Dr. Stacy M. Musgrave, Cal Poly Pomona
• April 18, 2016: “Serial Killers, Chaos and Careers in Mathematics”(PDF, 2.4MB) by Talena Williamson, Amgen
• March 28, 2016: “The Interlace Polynomial of the Friendship Graph”(PDF, 1.7MB) by Dr. Christina Eubanks Turner, Loyola Marymount University
• March 7, 2016: “Upscaling Discrete to Continuous Mathematical Models (and other interesting things in Mathematical Biology)”(PDF, 242KB) by Dr. Alicia Prieto Langarica, Youngstown State University
• February 27, 2016: "Making the Infinite Seem Finite: Origins and Applications of Projective Geometry" (PDF, 170KB) by Dr. J. Brooke Ernest, Cal State University Channel Islands
• February 8, 2016: “Isomorphisms in Mathematics”(PDF, 232KB) by Dr. Alfonso Zamora Saiz, CI
• February 1, 2016: “Mathemagics and Card Tricks”(PDF, 185KB) by Dr. Jorge Garcia, CI

Fall 2015 Semester

• November 4, 2015: “Modeling Shapes with Skeletal Fragments”(PDF, 290KB) by Dr. Kathryn Leonard, CI
• October 7, 2015: “Pathways to Careers in the Medical and Health Professions”(PDF, 385KB) by Dr. Gary Sayed, Cal State Dominguez Hills
• September 30, 2015: “The Lind-Lehmer Constant for Cyclic groups of order less than 892,371,480”(PDF, 272KB) by Dr. Vincent Pigno, CSU Sacramento
• September 23, 2015: “Contact Geometry: A 21st Century Geometry”(PDF, 323KB) by Bahar Acu, graduate student at USC
• September 9, 2015: “Research topics for graduate study in Biostatistics”(PDF, 230KB) by Matt Dawson, graduate student at UC Davis

Spring 2015 Semester

• April 22, 2015: “From the White Elephant Game to Congressional Committee Assignments; Valuing Traded Goods(PDF, 130KB)
• April 15, 2015: “Twenty First Century Learners”(PDF, 222KB) by Veronica M. Solorzano
• April 8, 2015: “Si, Se Puede: Four “(PDF, 596KB) Drs. Alicia Prieto Langarica (Youngstown State University), Pamela Harris (West Point Academy), Selenne Bañuelos (CI), Cynthia Flores (CI)
• February 18, 2015: “Ingress and Graph Theory”(PDF, 140KB) by Dr. Roger Roybal, CI
• February 11, 2015: “What happens when we Sin over and over, without end?”(PDF, 219KB) by Dr. Christopher Towse
• February 4, 2015: “Making the Infinite Seem Finite”(PDF, 438KB) by J. Brooke Ernest