Skip to Main Content

The AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics

About the Lectures

The annual AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics began in 2005, to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis, or, "Miracle Year" in 1905, when he published four fundamental papers that revolutionized physics. These papers explained the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the theory of special relativity, and the principle of mass-energy equivalence. They solidified Einstein's reputation as one of the greatest physicists of all time and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.

The lectures were endowed by a generous donor in 2008. They are to be given annually at one of the Society's eight sectional meetings. 

Suggest A Speaker

Next Lectures

Portrait of Talitha Washington

2024 · Talitha Washington · Clark Atlanta University

The 2024 Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics will be given by Talitha Washington, Clark Atlanta University and Atlanta University Center, at the 2024 Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting at Howard University, Washington, DC. The lecture, titled The Data Revolution, will take place on April 6, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. and will be open to the public.

  • Talitha Washington is a featured mathematician on the American Mathematical Society's poster, Mathematically Gifted And Black. Order one for your office or classroom!
  • View Washington's MathSciNet profile
  • Print and distribute the flyer for this event (PDF)
 

2025 · Sarah B. Hart · Birkbeck, University of London and Gresham College

The 2025 Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics will be given by Sarah B. Hart, the Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, at the 2025 Spring Southeastern Sectional Meeting at Clemson University, Clemson, SC, which will be held March 8-9, 2025.

Past Lectures

Portrait of Nathaniel Whitaker

2023 · Nathaniel Whitaker · University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The 2023 Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics was given by Nathaniel Whitaker, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, at the Spring Central Sectional Meeting at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH,  April 15-16, 2023. The title of the lecture was From Segregation to Research Mathematician

 

2022 · This lecture was cancelled, as part of the cancellation of the 2022 Spring Southeastern Sectional Meeting.

Portrait of Abba Gumel, smiling, wearing bow tie

2021 · Abba Gumel · Arizona State University

The 2021 Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics was delivered virtually on Saturday, March 20, 2021, by Professor Abba Gumel of Arizona State University. The title of his lecture was Mathematics of Infectious Diseases. See the poster here.

Abba Gumel is the Foundation Professor of Mathematics at the School of Mathematical and Statistical Science, Arizona State University. He received his PhD in Mathematics from Brunel University, England, in 1994, and has been Professor of Mathematics at the University of Manitoba, Canada (1999-2014). His work is primarily focused on the use of mathematical approaches to gain insight into the transmission dynamics and control of emerging and re-emerging diseases of public health importance. Read more at his university page.

Barry Mazur Harvard University

2019 · Barry Mazur · Harvard University

The 2019 Einstein Lecture was held in the Kennedy Theatre at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI.The title of his lecture was On the Arithmetic of Curves. See the poster here.

Barry Mazur is Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University. Winner of many awards and prizes, including the National Medal of Science, Mazur has done outstanding work in many areas of mathematics—his work provided a foundation for the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem—and is known for being able to communicate those results to non-mathematicians and to relish doing so. See video of his lecture here:

Edward Frenkel lecture poster

2018 · Edward Frenkel · UC Berkeley

The 2018 Einstein Lecture was held in the Blackman Auditorium, Ell Hall, at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, on April 21, 2018 at 5:15 pm. The title of his lecture was Imagination and Knowledge. See the poster here.

Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1997 after being on the faculty at Harvard University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and the winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize in mathematical physics. Frenkel's latest book "Love and Math" was a New York Times bestseller, has been named one of the Best Books of the year by both Amazon and iBooks, and won the Euler Book Prize from the Mathematical Association of America. It has been published in 17 languages, with more translations in the pipeline

Richard Evan Schwartz Brown University

2017 · Richard Evan Schwartz · Brown University

04/01/17 at Indiana University, Bloomington, Idiana
Spring Central Sectional Meeting
Modern Scratch Paper: Graphical Explorations in Geometry and Dynamics

Erik Demaine Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2016 · Erik Demaine · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

03/05/16 at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
Spring Southeastern Sectional Meeting
Fun with Fonts: Mathematical Typography

Simon Tavaré  Cambridge University

2015 · Simon Tavaré · Cambridge University

3/07/15 at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting
Cancer by the Numbers

James H Simons  Simons Foundation

2014 · James H. Simons · Simons Foundation

10/25/14 at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
Fall Western Section Meeting · View Highlights
Mathematics, Common Sense, and Good Luck

Jon Kleinberg Cornell University

2013 · Jon Kleinberg · Cornell University

10/19/13 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri,
Fall Central Section Meeting · View presentation slides
Bursts, Cascades, and Hot Spots: A Glimpse of Some On-Line Social Phenomena at Global Scales

Uhlmann

2012 · Gunther Uhlmann · University of California and Irvine & University of Washington

03/17/12 at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Spring Eastern Section Meeting
Cloaking: Science Meets Science-Fiction

Tao

2010 · Terence Tao · University of California Los Angeles

10/09/10 at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California,
Fall Western Section Meeting
The Cosmic Distance Ladder

Waterman

2009 · Michael S. Waterman · University of Southern California

04/04/09 at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
Spring Southeastern Section Meeting
Reading DNA sequences:Twenty-first century technology with eighteenth century mathematics

View lecture poster

2008 · Freeman Dyson · Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton

10/04/2008 at the University of British Columbia and the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences (PIMS)
2008 Fall Western Section Meeting
Note: The Einstein Lecture by Freeman Dyson was cancelled. A link to his Birds and Frogs Notices article is provided.

View lecture poster

2007 · Sir Roger Penrose · University of Oxford

10/6/07 at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Fall Eastern Section Meeting
Spacetime Conformal Geometry, and a New Extended Cosmology

View lecture poster

2006 · Benoît B. Mandelbrot · Yale University

4/29/06 at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
Spring Western Section Meeting
The Nature of Roughness in Mathematics, Science, and Art

View lecture poster

2005 · Sir Michael Atiyah · University of Edinburgh

10/21/05 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska
Fall Central Section Meeting
The Nature of Space

Press releases and reviews:

Top ↑