Research for Undergraduates
Elizabeth Denne
Burton Hall 312
edenne at smith.edu
Summary
This page contains details about summer research projects, honors theses, and special studies that I have advised. You can also find information about mentoring, as well as some talks for undergraduates and high school students that I have given.
Summer Research Experiences
At Smith College
- Summer 2009 Shivani Aryal, Shorena Kalandarishvili and Sarah Meyer studied flat knotted
ribbons. These are knots and links constructed from a rectangle of fixed width which is then folded
flat in the plane.
(Click here
for their report 2.4 MB .pdf file.)
They all attended the Unknot Conference at Denison University, which was aimed at undergraduate faculty and students interested in research on knot theory. Sarah and Shorena gave a talk about their results. A poster from the conference can be found here (2.6MB). - Summer 2007 Reagin (Taylor) McNeill studied the supercrossing number of knots.
Elsewhere:
- Summer 2005 Gerardo Con Diaz's project included a study of the
supercrossing number of knots. Harvard University.
(Click here for his report 3.1 MB .pdf file.) - Summer 2004 Gerardo Con Diaz's project included an introduction to knot theory, seifert surfaces, signature of a knot and proving that (2,2n+1) torus knots have signature 2n for any integer n. Harvard University.
- Summer 2001 and 2002: Associate mentor for NSF funded illiMath2001 and illiMath2002 REUs in geometry in the Mathematics Department at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The project developed a java applet visualizing the crossing map. This software was developed further at Technische Universitat Berlin, and can be found here.
Honors Theses
- Emma Schlatter ('10) "Knots and 3-manifolds"
- Reagin (Taylor) McNeil ('08) "Knot Theory and the Alexander Polynomial". (Click here for her thesis 1.2 MB .pdf file.) Taylor is currently a graduate student at Rice University.
Special Studies
Fall 2009 Emma Schlatter and Nicole Vitale Introduction to algebraic topology.
Spring 2008 Rosanna Speller ('08) researched the minimum distance energy of knots.
A poster (284KB)
of her work was shown at Smith Collaborations '08.
(Click here for
her report 204 KB .pdf file.)
Mentoring
Interested in graduate school in mathematics? Please stop by for a chat and we can discuss what's involved. Click here for more information.
I am the organizer of a panel on "Life as a graduate student" at the 2009 Women In Mathematics In New England Conference held at Smith College on Saturday September 26, 2009. We'll discuss how to find a graduate school and apply, and give tips on being a successful math graduate student. (This is a repeat of the very successful discussion I moderated at WIMIN 08.)
I was a mentor for Gerardo Con Diaz, a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow in mathematics at Harvard University. He is now a graduate student at Yale University.
Introductory Talks
October 2009 "Introduction to Geometric Knot Theory" (2.1MB) Mathematics Colloquium, Connecticut State University.
July 2009 "How much string does it take to tie your shoelaces", a talk given at the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, Hampshire College and at the Unknot Conference, Denison University.
