John Urschel - Mathematician and Former Pro Football Player
Mathematics speaks to this side of me where I'm really curious and want to know why. My goal is to have a better knowledge of pure mathematics as well as a deeper knowledge of a lot of areas of applied mathematics because math underlies so many things in our everyday life.
Yes, math teaches you things about triangles, numbers, factorization, but what it really teaches the entire way through is how to look at some problem that you may face every day in your life, or even a problem that is a little bit different than any problem you've ever faced.— John Urschel
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Learn more about John Urschel, his pro football career and mathematics:
- "From NFL to MIT: John Urschel looking to increase diversity in mathematics," by Jamison Hensley, ESPN, September 23, 2020
- "John Urschel: From NFL Player to Mathematician," by Steve Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, February 25, 2020
- "Former NFL Player Tackles Football And Math," Science Friday, May 31, 2019
- "It all adds up: Lineman John Urschel loves his post-NFL life," Newsday, May 30, 2019
- "From The Gridiron To Multigrid Algorithms In 'Mind And Matter'," Interview by Michel Martin, NPR, May 18, 2019
- "John Urschel, ex-NFL player and mathematician, on how to find your passion," By Jason Wolf, Buffalo News, May 17, 2019
- "MIT's John Urschel On The NFL, Concussions And Settlers Of Catan," Interview by Karen Given, WBUR, May 17, 2019
- "Ex–NFL Player John Urschel Gave up the Game for a Ph.D.—and a Life—in Math," by Sean Gregory, Time, May 16, 2019
- "Q&A: John Urschel On NFL Analytics, Two-Point Conversion Cowards, And That Math Problem," by Dom Consentino, Deadspin, May 14, 2019
- "John Urschel on why every child should play team sports," PBS News Hour, May 13, 2019
- "Meet for the former NFL player studying mathematics at MIT," Today Show, May 13, 2019
- "John Urschel’s retirement was a case of simple math," by Ben Volin, The Boston Globe, May 11, 2019
- "Math Teachers Should Be More Like Football Coaches," by John Urschel, The New York Times, May 11, 2019
- "Why former NFL lineman John Urschel benched football for math," CBS News, December 8, 2018
- John Urschel gave the keynote speech at MoMath's (National Museum of Mathematics) 2018 Gala, October 23, 2018. See the video
- “John Urschel Explains How Order and Chaos, Football and Math Coexist in Return Visit to Penn State,” by Anthony Colucci, StateCollege.com, February 21, 2018
- "A Calculated Decision: Why John Urschel Chose Math Over Football," by Tim Rohan, Sports Illustrated, November 21, 2017
- "Former Penn State offensive lineman, now full-time mathematician John Urschel announces partnership with Texas Instruments," by Jack Hirsh, The Daily Collegian, August 15, 2017
- "Ravens OL John Urschel Retires After CTE Study, Continues Pursuit of MIT Ph.D.," by Mike Chiari, Bleacher Report, July 27, 2017
- "Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study," by Jamison Hensley, ESPN, July 27, 2017
- "From the NFL to MIT: The Double Life of John Urschel," by Peter Dizikes, MIT Technology Review, June 21, 2017
- John Urschel home page at MIT
- Ravens' Urschel shares his love for math, WBAL-TV, September 26, 2016
- "Get pumped up to go back to school with pro football player John Urschel," Texas Instruments, August 9, 2016
- "Pro Football Player John Urschel helps students score in math and science," PR Newswire, June 11, 2016
- "My Three Favorite Math Puzzles," by John C. Urschel, The Players' Tribune, June 13, 2016
- "Head of the class: Ravens' John Urschel gets straight A's in four Ph.D. courses at MIT," by Jamison Hensley, ESPN, May 25, 2016
- "Ravens player and MIT mathematician talks about the 2016 Draft, his nasty concussion, and his favorite team," by Charlotte Wilder, For the Win - USA Today Sports, April 28, 2016
- "Ravens Offensive Lineman John Urschel Explains His Mathematics Paper," by John Urschel, Forbes, The Lab Bench, March 26, 2016
- "An NFL player is starting a math PhD program at MIT in his offseason," by Abby Jackson, BusinessInsider, January 27, 2016
- "Baltimore Ravens OL John Urschel Spending Offseason Working on PhD at MIT," by Kyle Newport , Bleacher Report, January 26, 2016
- "'I plan to be a great mathematician': An NFL Offensive Lineman Shows He’s One of Us," by Stephen D. Miller, Notices of the AMS, February 2016. See also this companion piece to Miller's interview with Urschel: "Cryptanalysis of the NFL Schedule," by Stephen D. Miller, January 12, 2016
- "John Urschel, a well-known mathematician you might not have heard of," by Edward Dunne, AMS Beyond Reviews: Inside MathSciNet Blog, October 25, 2015
- "Mathlete John Urschel Wants You to Learn Math!," by Dante A. Ciampaglia, Sports Illustrated Kids, July 2, 2015
- "John Urschel Talks About Why More Young Kids Don’t Love Math," by Maxwell Strachan, Huffington Post, July 1, 2015
- John Urschel Wikipedia page, with brief biography, career highlights and awards
- "John Urschel: Athlete, Mathlete," by Evelyn Lamb, AMS Blog on Math Blogs, April 7, 2015
- "A Cascadic Multigrid Algorithm for Computing the Fiedler Vector of Graph Laplacians," by John C. Urschel and Jinchao Xu, Journal of Computational Mathematics, Vol.33, No.2, 2015, 209–226, March 13, 2015