Research for Undergraduates
Elizabeth Denne
Burton Hall 312
edenne at smith.edu
Summary
This page contains details about summer research projects, honors theses, and special studies that I have advised. You can also find information about mentoring, as well as some introductory talks for undergraduates and high school students that I have given.
Research Experiences
At Smith College
- Fall 2011 Eleanor Conley, Emily Meehan, Rebecca Terry continued research into the ribbonlength of polygonal knot diagrams. They presented their research at the January 2012 Joint Math Meetings in Boston. Click here for their report (8.3MB).
- Summer 2009 Shivani Aryal, Shorena Kalandarishvili and Sarah Meyer studied flat knotted ribbons. These are knots and links constructed from a rectangle of fixed width which is then folded flat in the plane. They presented their research at the Unknot Conference at Denison University. A poster from the conference can be found here (2.6MB). Click here for their report (2.4 MB).
- Summer 2007 Reagin (Taylor) McNeill studied the supercrossing number of knots.
Elsewhere:
- Summer 2005 Gerardo Con Diaz's project included a study of the
supercrossing number of knots. Harvard University.
Click here for his report (3.1 MB). - Summer 2004 Gerardo Con Diaz's project included an introduction to knot theory, seifert surfaces, signature of a knot and proving that (2,2n+1) torus knots have signature 2n for any integer n. Harvard University.
- Summer 2001 and 2002: Associate mentor for NSF funded illiMath2001 and illiMath2002 REUs in geometry in the Mathematics Department at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The project developed a java applet visualizing the crossing map. This software was developed further at Technische Universitat Berlin, and can be found here.
Honors Theses
- Emma Schlatter ('10) Knot theory and its application to 3-manifolds. Click here for her thesis (1 MB).
- Reagin (Taylor) McNeil ('08) Knot Theory and the Alexander Polynomial. Click here for her thesis (1.2 MB). Taylor is currently a graduate student at Rice University.
Special Studies
- Spring 2011 Viktoria Pardey: Advanced Algebraic Topology.
- Fall 2009 Emma Schlatter ('10), Nicole Vitale ('10): Introduction to algebraic topology.
- Spring 2008 Rosanna Speller ('08): The minimum distance energy of knots. A poster (284KB) of her work was shown at Smith Collaborations '08. Click here for her report (204 KB).
Mentoring
Interested in graduate school in mathematics? Please stop by for a chat and we can discuss what's involved. Click here for more information.
I organized a panel on Life as a graduate student at the 2008 and 2009 Women In Mathematics In New England Conference held at Smith College. W
I was a mentor for Gerardo Con Diaz, a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow in mathematics at Harvard University. He is now a graduate student at Yale University.
Introductory Talks
October 2011 How much string do you need to tie your shoelaces? (2.0MB) Science in the Center 10 minute talk. Smith College.
October 2009 Introduction to Geometric Knot Theory (2.1MB) Mathematics Colloquium, Connecticut State University.
July 2009 How much string does it take to tie your shoelaces?
A friendly introduction to geometric knot theory; given at
(1) the
Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, Hampshire College, and (2) the
Unknot Conference, Denison University.