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Pólya Lectureship

George Pólya embodied the high quality of exposition which the Mathematical Association of America seeks to encourage. To further this goal, the Board of Governors of the Association hereby creates the George Pólya Lectureship. This Lectureship will be held by an individual representing the high standards set by George Pólya. Each Section will be entitled to a Pólya Lectureship approximately every five years.

Sections are eligible to have a Pólya Lecturer speak at a Section meeting once every five years, with all travel expenses borne by the MAA. A new Pólya Lecturer will be appointed every year, with a term of two academic years. The first year of the term overlaps the term of the previous Pólya Lecturer and the second year overlaps the term of the next Pólya Lecturer. Sections will be eligible during the academic year, once every five years, on a rotating basis.

Eligible Sections should complete the Pólya Lecturer Request Form, by November 1 of their year of eligibility to coordinate a lecture. In the year a Section is eligible for the Pólya Lecturer, a Section may in addition choose a speaker from the list of National Officers to visit the Section.

2008 - 2009 Pólya Lecturers

George E. Andrews is Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at Penn State and an elected member of the National Academy of Science. He lists 264 research articles. While his interests center on partition theory, he has pursued this topic in many different directions, establishing ties to number theory and asymptotic analysis, to special functions and q-hypergeometric series, to statistical mechanics and the study of exactly solved models, to representation theory and its generating functions, to computer algebra systems and automated methods of finding and proving series identities and transformation formulas. He is known as the person who discovered Ramanujan's 'lost notebook,' and he is one of the leading Ramanujan scholars today. He has published twelve articles in the American Mathematical Monthly, and frequently speaks to a wide range of audiences.

Louis H. Kauffman is Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Kauffman's primary interests are in topology, particularly knot theory and its relationships with physics. His discoveries include a state sum model for the Alexander-Conway Polynomial, the bracket state sum model for the Jones polynomial, the Kauffman polynomial and Virtual Knot Theory. Kauffman is the founding editor, and Editor-In-Chief, of the Journal of Knot Theory and its Ramifications. He is the author of Formal Knot Theory (Dover Publications 2007), On Knots (Princeton University Press 1987), and Knots and Physics (World Scientific Pub. Co. 1991,2001,2003)

2009 - 2010 Pólya Lecturers

Louis H. Kauffman – Professor of Mathematics – Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Judy Walker is Professor and Graduate Chair at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her main research interests are in algebraic coding theory, and her current work focuses primarily on codes on graphs. She has also studied connections between coding theory and both algebraic geometry and number theory. She is co-founder of the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics and an editor for the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, Advances in Mathematics of Communications and the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Math Journal.

Following is the rotation for Pólya Lecturer eligibility:

It is customary for the section to waive any registration, banquet and social fees. The Pólya Lecturer will pay his/her own travel expenses and will be reimbursed by the national organization. We ask that a section be a thoughtful host. In the crush of meeting details and the distribution of duties amongst section officers and local arrangements faculty, it is sometimes easy for responsibilities to fall through the cracks. Please be sure to consider your visitors' arrangements for travel, lodging, meals, local transportation and registration. In the days of "Saturday night stayovers", it is especially cordial that the section consider Saturday evening dining arrangements. At least give visiting speakers options ("a ride would be great" or "I'll catch a cab") for airport pickups, get-togethers at meals, etc. Be sure to communicate fully about the schedule of events at your meeting.

Pólya Lecturer Request Form

View the list of past Pólya Lecturers

Questions about Sections? | email Kerry Sullivan at ksullivan@maa.org