Dr. Nancy Scherich, Elon University Department of Mathematics and Statistics will visit campus June 1-2, 2023 to deliver the spring term AWM Distinguished Lectures.

After completing her PhD in mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2019, Dr. Scherich completed postdocs at ICERM at Brown University and University of Toronto and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University. She joined the faculty at Elon University as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2022. Her research areas is in low dimensional topology and algebra in general and knot theory and braid group theory in particular.

Dr. Scherich will deliver two lectures at UO:

Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 3 pm

Title: How do mathematicians study braids?

University Hall 205

Undergraduate-level talk (graduate students also welcome!)

Abstract: Knots and braids are all around us, and believe it or not, they are very mathematical! In this undergraduate introductory talk, Dr. Nancy Scherich will describe how mathematicians build a model for braided objects and how we study this model. As both a mathematician and award-winning dancer, Dr. Scherich will use dance videos as visual aids to explain the higher math concepts.

Friday, June 2, 2023 at 12 noon

Title: Representations of the Braid Groups

University Hall 205

Graduate-level talk

Abstract: Why do braids show up in so many areas of Mathematics? In this graduate aimed talk, Dr. Nancy Scherich will give an introduction of braid theory and give some applications in different areas of algebra and topology. She will discuss recent advances in representation theory in the direction of quantum computing and address some open questions.