Hello everyone!

I have been trying to find a speaker for our college's annual Math Appreciation Day, coming up in April, but have had no luck. Do you have any recommendations?

My current plans of attack have been to find a lead engineer at SpaceX, Tesla, or some other bigger tech/industry company (SpaceX and Tesla are also considered 'local' to Central Texas). I have tried many times in various ways but am getting no reply.

The idea is that the speaker would present the importance of math in some specific area of engineering, but generalized enough that all mathematics and engineering majors would still be interested. Likewise, non-math folks would at least find it amusing and perhaps desire to learn more math afterwards. Someone charismatic yet knowledgeable is nearly a requirement. It would be a 1 hour presentation to an audience of about 300+ folks who want to be there because they are getting extra credit for showing up! Enrollment this year is exploding so I'm expecting a vastly larger turnout than last year.

In the past we have had math book authors and professional math speakers, mainly folks who are 'strictly math'. It would be nice to change it up a bit with someone who works at *applying* math.

Suggestions? Thoughts? I certainly can't promise that I will go with someone you pitch at me, but it would be at least a starting place.

Thanks everyone!

Chad

John Cook blogs about maths, and has a consultancy - he's a mathematician for hire. Seems to be in Houston, too.
johndcook.com

That was fast! Thank you Ed, I just sent him a message through his site and emailed him. That's just what I was looking for!

Anyone else, please pitch a speaker to me! Even if I go with someone else, there is always next year to think about as well.

Thank you again Ed!

Chad

He replied, and said "no". Oh well. Anybody else have ideas?

Chad

Have you thought about Martin Eberhard? One of the real founders of Tesla.

He's pretty active in the retro-computing world and seems like a relatively nice guy.

_________________
Bill