This week, I gave two talks at the CMS Winter Meeting.
Abstract: Supporting A Departmental Culture of Undergraduate Research
Research, at any level, does not occur in a vacuum. It is an organic process rooted in the local culture.
In this talk, I describe a pair of initiatives at UTSC that support undergraduate research: The $U(T)$-Mathazine and Undergraduate Seminar.
After recounting their histories, I describe how they support a culture of undergraduate research and how to go about starting similar initiatives at your institution.See also: https://www2.cms.math.ca/Events/winter25/abs/PAMento#ac
Abstract: String Stars: A Joyful Ending for a Class
Our activity will teach participants to make a string star. This string figure was originally made in Japan, but connects to the universal childhood pastime of playing with string. The activity of making a string star connects students’ lived experience of playing cat’s cradle in childhood to their university education. In our teaching, we use this activity as a means to end a course and create a lasting memory of joy in the mathematics classroom.
See also: https://www2.cms.math.ca/Events/winter25/sessions_scientific#JOY
Right now, I’m reading a few things which feel quite different.
A lot of this week was spent putting together the talks and workshops above. I sent off another draft of Jayne in Brief. This time, I rejigged everything to output as PNGs with the correct geometry. For a frontispiece, I decided to go with an image of Many Stars. It’ll be in print soon!
We seem to be in a bit of a crafting phase at my place. This week, I got some air dry clay to make ornaments. I wound up making these special gifts for my braiding class students. A final braided object to remember the course by.
I wanted the wreath to be a three-strand braid that closed up to make a three component link à la Alexander’s Theorem. Symbolically, I wanted to represent the way in which our three lives had linked together through braids. It turned out to be very hard to get the joins to look good with my limited pottery skills. So, I covered the join over with a disk! The tassles for hanging them are three-loop four-ridge tubular braids1.
Another little crafting project from this week: I hand-sewed an octohedral juggling ball. I’ve wanted to make my own juggling balls for at least a decade. And for some reason, this week, I pulled out some sewing stuff and did it. Certainly, checking out Joshua Clifton’s Guide was inspirational.
Some games I saw and want to try:
“The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises — and everything that is unimportant falls away.”
— Arvo Pärt
I love this sort of nomenclature. It turns out that if you zoom in on any cultural practice, it gets infinitely detailed and complicated. ↩︎
Published: Dec 7, 2025 @ 12:00.
Last Modified: Dec 8, 2025 @ 14:22.
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