CCMS Colloquium with Pre-Colloquium Reception:  Shahriar Shahriari (Pomona College)

We will conclude the CCMS Fall Colloquium Series with a Pre-Colloquium Reception followed by a talk (details below).

Pre-Colloquium Reception will begin at 3:30pm with foods and drink in the Estella Atrium.

Following the reception, the colloquium talk will start at 4:30pm (Notice the change in time.)

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Speaker: Shahriar Shahriari, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, Pomona College, Claremont, CA

Title:  Combinatorial Connections: HyperCubes & Vector Spaces Over Finite Fields

Abstract: Abstractions allow us to see connections between familiar objects. In extremal set theory, often the aim is to find the largest or smallest collection of subsets with a specific property. Using the lens of partially ordered sets, one can investigate vector spaces over finite fields using vaguely similar techniques. If V is an n-dimensional vector space over a finite field, then how many k-dimensional subspaces can you find so that your collection does not include three distinct subspaces A, B, and C with A = (A\cap B) \oplus (A \cap C)? How many subspaces of any dimension can you find so that your collection does not include three distinct subspaces A, B, and C with either $A  \subseteq B \cap C$ or $B+C \subseteq A$? These puzzles will illustrate the connections between combinatorics of finite sets and of vector spaces.

Bio:  Shahriari is the William Polk Russell Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College. He has had the privilege of teaching/mentoring generations of talented students, many of whom are now teaching in universities and colleges across the country.

In 2015, Shahriar Shahriari received a Mathematical Association of America Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished Teaching in Mathematics for his commitment to bringing more students from underrepresented groups into the field of mathematics — widely considered the nation’s top prize for teaching mathematics. He is a five-time winner of Pomona College’s Wig teaching award. Known for classes that encourage student-driven discovery, he published the materials for his honors Calculus class as a textbook, titled Approximately Calculus, which won the American Library Association’s Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title in 2007. Shahriari has published three texts: “Approximately Calculus”, “Algebra in Action”, and “An Invitation to Combinatorics”, and over 50 articles, many coauthored with undergraduate students.