Join the Mathematics and Statistics Department for a variety of stimulating math talks. We will meet every Monday from 3:10 to 4 p.m. (unless otherwise noted). For those who are on our distribution list, instructions on how to join each virtual meeting will be sent to your Kenyon email. If you would like to be added to the distribution list, please email Emily Teater at teater1@kenyon.edu.
Students who participated in summer research programs share their work over the summer.
Fall 2026
Our first Math Monday of the new year is set for Aug. 31. Please join us for a Math Nature Walk, which will start at 3:10 p.m. Plan to meet at the outside doors to Hayes Hall. We will leave shortly after 3:10 p.m.
A drink station will be available before the walk, but you are encouraged to bring your own water bottles. This is your chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones as we say hello to all our fellow math and stats faculty and students. We hope to see you there!
Meet and greet with your fellow math/stat students and the math and statistics faculty at this year's First-Year Welcome Tea. Say hello to our math community and hear about all the exciting news in math and statistics.
Join us on the Peirce Hall patio (weather permitting) at 3:10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 7. We will be offering a variety of snacks with lemonade and iced tea. Celebrate another year of mathematics and statistics here at Kenyon. We hope to see you there!
Every summer, many of our students participate in various summer research programs. Students work as full participants in the processes of creating a research plan, executing a research project, and preparing results for presentation in a public forum. Learn more about the research done by your fellow mathematics and statistics students.
This week's panelists include:
Owen Brown '27 did summer research at the Summer@ICERM 2026 program focused on DNA graph theoretical modeling of DNA self-assembly. Self-assembly is the process where a set of components combine to form an organized structure without external direction or energy input. Double stranded DNA molecules have unique properties that make them a useful material for the self-assembly of nanostructures. These nanostructures can be modeled with discrete graphs, turning DNA self-assembly into an interesting mathematical puzzle. These nanostructures have wide-ranging applications, such as containers for the transport and release of nano-cargos, templates for the controlled growth of nano-objects, and in drug-delivery methods. His research this summer explored several graph families, utilizing graph theoretical and combinatorial properties of DNA self-assembly to optimize the nanostructure construction for laboratories. This presentation will explain the graph theoretical model for DNA self-assembly and feature an example that Owen worked on this summer, Kayak Paddle Graphs.
Quang Doan '28 - Worked with Prof. Gee as part of this year's Summer Science Scholars. This project explores optimal path planning for an undetected survivor in a zombie apocalypse who must reach a safe zone within a set deadline. He developed a path planning model in which local slope determines the survivor's speed, while terrain type and zombie density determine the cost of movement. Because the zombies diffuse randomly, their density is modeled by the 2D diffusion equation (PDE). With the solution to the PDE, he then derived a time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation and solve it numerically backward in time. He tested the model on real elevation and terrain data from Gambier, OH, using an initial zombie population inspired by Kenyon College student activity patterns. Evaluating the model under different deadlines generates distinct optimal evacuation paths. Specifically, shortening the deadline generates a path approaching the time-optimal trajectory, whereas increasing the deadline makes the solution converge to the safest path. Overall, when the deadline is long enough, he predicted it is optimal to take a slower path that avoids high-density zombie regions at the expense of time.
Join us on Monday, Sept. 14, at 3:10 pm in Hayes Hall 109 to hear these exciting presentations and perhaps learn how you too can get involved in summer research programs. We hope to see you there!
Every summer, many of our students participate in various summer research programs. Students work as full participants in the processes of creating a research plan, executing a research project, and preparing results for presentation in a public forum. Learn more about the research done by your fellow mathematics and statistics students.
This week's panelists include:
Khanh Mai ‘28 worked as part of the Kenyon Summer Science Scholars this year. As a generalization of cyclic and constacyclic codes, polycyclic codes offer a promising framework for constructing codes with good properties. Since the dual of a polycyclic code is not necessarily polycyclic, characterizing their dual presents theoretical challenges. In this research, he investigated polycyclic codes associated with trinomials and quadrinomials. He established that all dual-containing polycyclic codes are, in fact, constacyclic. Furthermore, he proved several duality results for polycyclic codes associated with trinomials and quadrinomials, and presented many examples of polycyclic codes with optimum or best-known parameters. Finally, he resolved an open conjecture from a recent manuscript regarding binary polycyclic codes associated with trinomials.
Lucas Waite ‘28 also worked as part of the Kenyon Summer Science Scholars over the summer. Recent progress has produced the first exponential improvement in nearly fifty years to the general asymptotic upper bounds for binary codes. By contrast, the corresponding lower-bound problem remains open. Lucas studied this problem, the Gilbert-Varshamov conjecture, through the lens of graph theory by defining the proximity graph of a metric space, in which codes correspond to independent sets and the Gilbert-Varshamov bound arises from the classical degree bound on independence. Lucas thus investigated whether fixed subgraph counts in the Hamming proximity graph can force independent sets exponentially larger than those guaranteed by Gilbert-Varshamov.
Join us on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 11:10 am in Hayes Hall 109 (please note the date and time change) to hear these exciting presentations and perhaps learn how you too can get involved in summer research programs. We hope to see you there!
"Can you add a non-zero integer to itself m times and get 0? This might seem like a straightforward question to ask about the integers; but when we ask the analogue of it for other mathematical structures the answer gets more exciting. In this talk, we will see how to answer the (appropriate analogue) of our question for the integers, the integers modulo n, and elliptic curves. Along the way, I'll also share a bit about some of my research on torsion points on elliptic curves. No prior group theory or number theory knowledge will be assumed."
Join us on Monday, Sept. 28, for this exciting presentation from Tori Day, assistant professor of Mathematics at Mount Holyoke College. The presentation will begin in Hayes 109 at 3:10 p.m. We hope to see you there!