Welcome to the 2026 Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. This is our 41st conference, and we look forward to hosting you on the beautiful Rose-Hulman campus.
The vision for the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Conference is to provide a venue to highlight and celebrate the accomplishments and work of undergraduate mathematicians and statisticians. The conference is put on largely by undergraduates for undergraduates. The contributed student talks will cover an array of topics including pure mathematical theory, applied modeling, statistics, and data science.
The Conference is scheduled for Saturday, March 28th. Plenary talks will be given by Matthew Wright of St. Olaf College and Jenny Quinn of the Seattle Universal Math Museum. This conference is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF DMS #2418532). We anticipate providing limited funding for student travel. Students registering by February 27 and requesting travel support will receive first consideration. Information on registration and talk submissions will be updated.
Invited Speakers
Matthew Wright
What is big? Understanding geometric notions of size
How do we quantify the size of geometric objects? Depending on the context or application, the question "How big is it?" may have various answers, even with regard to the same object. For certain classes of geometric objects, a theorem by Hugo Hadwiger classifies all possible notions of size. Hadwiger's Theorem relies on the intrinsic volumes, which generalize concepts of length, area, and volume. In this talk, I will introduce the intrinsic volumes and explain Hadwiger's Theorem, with a view towards applications and computation. In other words, this talk will explain, subject to mild assumptions, all possible geometric notions of size.
Matthew Wright is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at St. Olaf College, where he has taught since 2015. He is a coauthor of the textbook Exploring Mathematics: A Computational Perspective and the recipient of two writing awards from the Mathematical Association of America. His research is in the area of applied and computational topology, and he enjoys collaborative research with students. He is also the Academic Director of MathPath, a summer math camp for middle-school students. When not doing math, Matthew enjoys juggling, reading, and strategy games.
Jenny Quinn
What the Pfaff?
It is likely you are familiar with the determinant function on a square matrix. But do you know about the Pfaffian? Donald Knuth once said "Pfaffians are more fundamental than determinants." So what the Pfaff is a Pfaffian?
Spoiler alert: Pfaffians are defined on skew-symmetric matrices and can be thought of as the square root of the determinant. This talk explores combinatorial interpretations of Pfaffians, determinants, and the connections between them. It showcases sign reversing involutions, a powerful and often underappreciated combinatorial method, and has guest appearances from knot theory and game theory.
Dr. Jenny Quinn’s personal mission is to make mathematics accessible, appreciated, and humane by actively engaging people with mathematics in the classroom and the community. An award-winning teacher, author, and scholar, she earned her doctorate in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, taught mathematics for more than 30 years at the collegiate level, and served as President of the Mathematical Association of America in 2021 and 2022. She is Professor Emerita from UW Tacoma and currently works as Executive Director of the Seattle Universal Math Museum, whose mission is to spark each and every person to love math -- making it the perfect match for her passion, creativity, and skills.