Undergraduate Mathematics Day 2025

Saturday, November 8, 2025

Undergraduate Mathematics Day

A day to celebrate and share mathematics research by undergraduates, Undergraduate Mathematics Day will be held on Saturday, November 8, 2025, at the University of Dayton. This year’s conference will be in-person only.

In addition to the two plenary talks listed below, we welcome 15-minute contributed talks on mathematics subjects of interest to undergraduate students. Undergraduate students, high school students, and graduate students are encouraged to give presentations. Talks can be on the learning and teaching of mathematics, the history of mathematics, and applications to disciplines related to mathematics.

The conference will be held in the Science Center, which is the home of the math department at the University of Dayton. Here is a link to the Campus Map.

Refreshments and registration will be in the Science Center Atrium. The Schraut lecture and the Plenary talk are in the O'Leary auditorium (Miriam Hall 119). The contributed talks are in the Science Center.

Plenary Speakers:

Carl McTague (Boston College)
Nick Haynes (Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Atlassian)

Support From:

Department of Mathematics
College of Arts and Sciences, University of Dayton
The Leonard A. Mann, S.M., Chair in the Sciences at UD,
and UD Math alums including contributors to the endowed Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Fund.

Plenary Talks

The 24th Annual Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Lecture: Using Math to Make Music by Dr. Carl McTague

Abstract: This talk will explore ways to use all the math you know to make your own music and soundscapes.

Carl McTague is an assistant professor of the practice at Boston College. He studies the connection between exotic geometries and chromatic homotopy theory, and what this connection reveals about the surprising relationship between topology and the arithmetic of algebraic curves. Specifically, he is working to uncover higher genus generalizations of elliptic cohomology suggested by the exceptional geometry of the Cayley plane (and categorifying moduli spaces of theta characteristics). He is also working to compute the homotopy type of the string bordism spectrum MO<8> at the prime 3, based on computer-assisted computations of its BP-homology, considered as a Hopf ring. In addition, he is working to formalize (in Coq) and apply machine learning to EHP and Adams spectral sequence calculations. He has also investigated novel uses of curvature in data analysis, pattern formation in cellular automata, as well as computational and geometric aspects of bookbinding and music composition.

Second Plenary Talk: Hype and hope: Lessons from a decade in AI by Nick Haynes

Abstract: AI burst into the public consciousness with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, but its foundations have been decades in the making. Drawing on a decade of work as both a user and builder of ML and AI systems, this talk will take a close look at the current state of AI, with an eye toward separating the hype from the genuine promise that today's systems provide. We will take a dive into the technical details of how these systems work to better understand the capabilities and limitations, and take lessons from previous hype cycles to consider how the next several years will look like for fields like math and software engineering as AI continues to evolve and become more and more a part of our everyday lives.

Nick Haynes has spent the last 10 years building machine learning and AI products in companies big and small, and in a variety of fields including natural language processing, sports analytics, fraud detection, and search relevance. He is currently a Principal Machine Learning Engineer at Atlassian, leading the development of AI-powered enterprise search and question answering systems. Nick lives in Durham, NC with his wife, Claire, and dog, Clover.

Electronic Proceedings of Undergraduate Mathematics Day

Undergraduate Mathematics Day has a companion journal, The Electronic Proceedings of Undergraduate Mathematics Day (EPUMD). Participants are encouraged to submit a paper not published elsewhere to EPUMD. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2025. For more information please contact Dr. Jonathan Brown, editor EPUMD.

If you have any questions about the conference or would like additional information, please contact our organizing committee.

Atif Abueida, Ph.D. aabueida1@udayton.edu
Muhammad Usman, Ph.D. musman1@udayton.edu

For previous events, including Undergraduate Mathematics Days, Biennial Alumni Seminars, and the Schraut Lectures, visit http://ecommons.udayton.edu/mth_events/.

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