Keynote Speaker

Eglash Ron Eglash,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

"Calculating Culture: African Fractals, Malaysian Buckyballs and other Adventures in Ethnomathematics"

When we think of the mathematics of indigenous cultures we envision counting on fingers and toes. But my field work in traditional societies in Africa and elsewhere revealed sophisticated geometric algorithms and concepts. With a little computational modeling we can make these ideas available for use in contemporary education, architecture, and other applications.

Dr. Ron Eglash received his B.S. in Cybernetics, his M.S. in Systems Engineering, and his PhD in History of Consciousness, all from the University of California. A Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship enabled his field research on African ethnomathematics, which was published by Rutgers University Press as African Fractals: modern computing and indigenous design, and recently appeared as his TED talk. He is a Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he teaches design of educational technologies and graduate seminars in social studies of science. His "Culturally Situated Design Tools" software, offering math and computing education from indigenous and vernacular arts, is available for free at www.csdt.rpi.edu. Recently funded work includes his NSF "Triple Helix" project, which brings together graduate fellows in science and engineering with local community activists and K-12 educators to seek new approaches to putting science and innovation in the service of under-served populations.



Panelists

Career Opportunities in Mathematics
Diversity in Mathematics
Graduate School