Math & CS Chats

Tuesday, February 15th
Col. Eric Magistad, U.S. Army War College

"Bridging the Data Science Gap: Democratizing Data to Create an Analytical Ecosystem"

Thinking about public and private sector establishments, perhaps the biggest obstacles to creating data-centric organizations are cultural. I argue that an effective data science program requires more than coding skills, math or fluency in specific software. For example, according to the Harvard Business Review, some organizations have initiated data science “centers of excellence” by hiring the best data scientists who focus their efforts simply where there are lots of data.[1] But what have these firms forgotten? An alternative argument maintains that a better approach to excellence is the application of “data democratization” – repositioning people closer to the data experts within an ecosystem. In this regard, recruiting top analytical talent is certainly a necessary condition for excellence but is not by itself sufficient. Expanding data accessibility and data literacy are the launching pads that give rise to a comprehensive data science strategy linking middle managers with those who possess technical knowledge of algorithms and model development. To this end, data science is as much about matrices and ROC curves as it is about combining analytical methods with critical thinking skills.    

Noon
Tome 115
Pizza provided beforehand at Tome Hall 2nd floor lounge area

Tuesday, April 12th
Mathematics & Computer Science Majors Dinner

6:00pm
HUB Social Hall

Tuesday, April 28th
Alex Nash, Honors Defense Presentation
"Parametrized Dynamics of the Dixon Elliptic Functions"

We investigated the dynamics of the function family { fc } = { csm }, where c is a nonzero complex number and sm is the Dixon elliptic function. Our interest was in analyzing the iterates of fc  and understanding how their behavior changes as we vary c. The function sm has several known properties that assisted in this task. A careful examination of these properties revealed the symmetries exhibited by the Fatou set, the set on which the iterates of fc are equicontinuous. The possible behaviors of points in the Fatou set were classified based on the modulus of c. In particular, we showed every point in the Fatou set approaches the origin when | c | < 1.

Noon
Tome 115 (Masks will be required in Tome 115)
Pizza provided beforehand at Tome Outdoor Classroom (Rain Location: Tome Hall 2nd Floor Lounge)

Wednesday, May 11th
Mathematics & Computer Science End of the Year Celebration

Noon
Tome Outdoor Classroom (Rain Location: Tome Hall 2nd Floor Lounge)
Food provided