About
PuMaGraSS is a friendly graduate student seminar that takes place every Friday during the semester and includes (free!) lunch. Every week features a casual talk by a graduate student from our department on an exciting mathematical topic.
Although there is a "pure" in the name of the seminar, that's retained mainly to keep the acronym so baller. Nowadays, we welcome talks on all topics, including combinatorics, probability theory, dynamical systems and more!
Logistics
- Time: Fridays 12 PM - 12:45 PM talk, 12:45 PM food is served
- Room: 2-449 talk, food location in announcement email
- Speaker signup sheet
Schedule
Organizers
It is a tradition that several second year PhD students run PuMaGraSS. Legend has it that at the end of the year, they acquire mystical puma-like powers.
- 2025-2026:
Julia Meng, Kayla Panner, Frank Wang, Dora Woodruff
- 2022-2023:
Travis Dillon, Elena Kim, Mikayel Mkrtchyan
- 2021-2022:
Marisa Gaetz, Cameron Krulewski, Natalia Pacheco Tallaj, Mary Stelow
- 2020-2021: Catherine Wolfram, Calder Morton-Ferguson, Alexander Ortiz
- 2019-2020: Luis Kumanduri, Ethan Sussman, Roger Van Peski
- 2018-2019: Robert Burklund, Greg Parker, Ruoxuan Yang
- 2017-2018: Robin Elliott, Jesse Freeman, Kaavya Valiveti
Questions you may ask
- Why should I give a talk?
- It's a great chance to practice giving a talk in an informal and friendly setting;
- You can share some fun mathematics you have been thinking about recently;
- You get a free meal from the restaurant of your choice;
- Your fellow students will know you better;
- Giving a PuMaGraSS talk automatically increases your coolness factor by +3 points
- What makes a good PuMaGraSS talk?
- Anything that's well-suited to pictures and visual aids rather than technical details;
- A broad outlook of a line of research; for instance something you may have seen in lectures, seminars, or work by your advisor;
- Something that everyone, especially non-experts, can get something out of. Applications and down-to-earth examples work wonders!
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