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AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Lectures

The Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture is given every year at the Joint Mathematics Meetings on a mathematical topic accessible to the broader community. The Porter Public Lecture series is offered jointly by the AMS, MAA and SIAM.

The Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture Series was established through the generosity and inspiration of Gerald and Judith Porter. Gerald Porter is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and has served the MAA as Treasurer, as a member of the Board of Governors for 22 years, and as a member and chair of numerous committees. Judith Porter is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Bryn Mawr College. Her research focuses on the relationship between AIDS and addiction.

The 2025 AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Lecture will be given by Ravi Vakil, Stanford University. 

  • 2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Francisco, CA, January 3-6, 2024. Maria Chudnovsky, Princeton University, What Makes a Problem Hard? (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture) 
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 6, 2024
  • 2023 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Boston, MA, January 4-7, 2023. Bernd Sturmfels, Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences The Quadratic Formula Revisited. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 7, 2023
  • 2022 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Virtual, April 6-9, 2022.  Lauren Kiyomi Williams, Harvard University, Tropical geometry and shallow water waves. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, April 9, 2022
  • 2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Virtual, January 6-9, 2021.  Trachette Jackson, University of Michigan, Turning cancer discoveries into effective treatments with the aid of mathematical modeling.  (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 9, 2021
  • 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Denver, CO, January 15-18, 2020.  Rajiv Maheswaran, Second Spectrum, The fantastic intersection of math and sports: Where no one is afraid of a decimal point.  (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 18, 2020.
  • 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Baltimore, MD, January 16-19, 2019.  Cathy O'Neil, ORCAA, Big Data, Inequality, and Democracy. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 19, 2019.
  • 2018 Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Diego, CA, January 10-13, 2018. Moon Duchin, Tufts University, Political Geometry: Voting Districts, "Compactness," and Ideas About Fairness. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 13, 2018.
  • 2017 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Atlanta, GA, January 4-7, 2017. Ingrid Daubechies, Duke University, Mathematics for Art Investigation. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 7, 2017
  • 2016 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Seattle, WA, January 6-9, 2016. Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft Research, Network Science: From the Online World to Cancer Genomics. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 9, 2016
  • 2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Antonio, TX, January 10-13, 2015.  Donald G. Saari, University of California, Irvine, From Voting Paradoxes to the Search for "Dark Matter". (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 10, 2015
  • 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Baltimore, MD, January 15-18, 2015. Eitan Grinspun, Columbia University, Movie magic: The mathematics behind Hollywood's visual effects. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 18, 2014
  • 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Diego, CA, January 9-12, 2013, Kenneth M. Golden , University of Utah, Mathematics and the melting polar ice caps. (MAA-AMS-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 12, 2013
  • 2012 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Boston, MA, January 4-7, 2012.  Erik D. Demaine , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Geometric puzzles: Algorithms and complexity. (AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 7, 2012
  • 2011 Joint Mathematics Meetings, New Orleans, LA, January 6-9, 2011.  Robert J. Lang , Robert J. Lang Origami, From flapping birds to space telescopes: The mathematics of origami. (AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture)
    Date of Lecture: Sunday, January 9, 2011
  • 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Francisco, CA, January 13-16, 2010.   Steven Strogatz , Cornell University, The calculus of friendship. (AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture) 
    Date of Lecture: Saturday, January 16, 2010