2025 Parsons Lecture – Thursday, March 6th – 7:00 pm
Details will be announced soon
About Dr. Sarah Hart
Sarah Hart is the first woman Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, and was appointed in 2020. She is Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Birkbeck, University of London.
She studied at Oxford and Manchester, gaining her PhD in 2000. Postdoctoral research and teaching followed, including a prestigious Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Fellowship, before she was appointed to a lectureship at Birkbeck in 2004. She became Professor of Mathematics there in 2013, and served in various management roles including as Head of Mathematics and Statistics, Assistant Dean, and Programme Director for the MSc Mathematics.
Her academic publications have been mainly in the area of pure mathematics known as group theory, which has many applications both inside and outside of mathematics, for example in coding theory and cryptography. She is actively involved in the British Society for the History of Mathematics, and has served a three-year term as President of the Society from 2021-2023.
About the Parsons Lecture
In 1998 a Mathematics alumnus from UNC Asheville provided an endowment, in honor of Joe Parsons, to fund this annual lecture series. The goal of the Parsons Lecture is to provide the UNC Asheville community with the ability to attend locally a presentation by a nationally renowned mathematician speaking on a topic accessible to the general audience. Speakers for the lecture series are invited to present a lecture not just because of their renown as mathematicians, but also for their skills as educators and orators. The endowment is used to fund travel and other expenses incurred by the speaker and department. Find information on the Parsons scholarship here.
About Joe Parsons
Joe Parsons grew up on a farm in western Tennessee and graduated from high school at 15 in 1931. In order that he might get a teaching certificate, a friend gave Joe enough money to attend his first year of college. He completed his undergraduate work and went on to the University of Tennessee for his graduate degree.
When Joe started at Asheville-Biltmore College (what is now UNC Asheville), he was the entire Math Department, and through much of the 1970’s he was the chair of the department. Other roles he filled at UNC Asheville include Dean of Students and Academic Dean. Joe also helped formulate the current plan of the UNC Asheville campus including the choice for the library to face Mt. Pisgah. The view from the library steps is admired on campus. He also was instrumental in the development of the first 4-year curriculum when UNC Asheville joined the UNC system.
Joe matched his dedication to this institution with his dedication to his students. Joe was known to students at UNC Asheville as a wonderful teacher with a good sense of humor. He personally founded an endowment for student scholarships in mathematics. Even in retirement he could not stay away from the classroom, reading for elementary students at Claxton school here in Asheville. Until his death on Sunday ,September 24, 2006, Joe continued to contribute to education in his community. He will be missed.
In 1998 one of Joe’s former students provided an endowment for the Parsons Lecture series to honor the dedication of this great educator and continue his legacy.
Past Parson Lectures
- 2025 – “The Geometry of Privacy” by Dr. Francis Su, Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College
- 2024 – “It’s No Puzzle Why I Love Math, Or Maybe It Is?” by Dr. Steven Klontz, Professor of Mathematics at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama
- 2021 – “Atari and the Multiverse of Doughnuts” by Dr. Autumn Kent, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison
- 2020 – “Gerrymandering, Mathematics and Fairness” by Dr. Moon Duchin, at Tufts University
- 2019 – “The Patterns of Play: A Recreational View of Mathematics” by Dr. Ronald D. Taylor, Professor of Mathematics at Berry College
- 2018 – “From Monroe to NASA” by Dr. Christine Darden. Darden’s character was featured in the 2016 book “Hidden Figures.”
- 2017 – “Playing from a Laptop: Sports Analytics” by Dr. Tim Chartier, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College
- 2016 – “Chaos Games and Fractal Images” by Dr. Bob Devaney, Professor of Mathematics at Boston University
- 2015 – “The Shape of Space” by Dr. Jeffrey Weeks, Middlebury College
- 2014 – “The Right Treatment for the Right Patient at the Right Time: Personalized Medicine and Statistics” By Dr. Marie Davidian, NC State University
- 2013 – “The Great Pi vs. e Debate” by Drs. Thomas Garrity and Colin Adams, Williams College
- 2012 – “Codes are Everywhere!” Dr. Judy Walker, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
- 2011 – “Monkeys, Mathematics, and Mischief: What are the Lifelong Lessons of Education?” Dr. Edward B. Burger, Williams College
- 2010 – “This Is So Wrong!” Dr. Stan Wagon, Macalester College
- 2009 – “From Flatland to Hypergraphics Geometry and Art in the 4th Dimension” Dr. Thomas Banchoff, Brown University
- 2008 – “Mathematical Modeling in Biology: What is it? And how is it useful?” Dr. Mary Lou Zeeman, Bowdoin College and Cornell
- 2007 – “We vote, but do we elect whom we really want?” Dr. Donald Saari, University of California, Irvine
- 2006 – “Breaking Drivers’ License Codes” Dr. Joseph Gallian, University of Minnesota-Duluth
- 2005 – “Ingenious Mathematical Amateurs: M.C. Escher & Marjorie Rice” Dr. Doris Schattschneider, Moravian College
- 2004 – “On the Number of Groups of a Given Order” Dr. John Conway, Princeton University
- 2003 – “Newton and Leibniz: Mathematicians at War” Dr. William Dunham, Muhlenberg College
- 2002 – “The Chaos Game and Fractal Images” Dr. Robert L. Devaney, Boston University