Jenny quinn

Title:  Pfaffians are Pfins

Time:  saturday,  9:00 aM - 10:00 aM

Abstract: Donald Knuth once wrote “Pfaffians are more fundamental than determinants.”  So why is it that few mathematicians are familiar with Pfaffians?  The Pfaffian was introduced more than 200 years ago and around 1850, Arthur Cayley proved a connection between these matrix functions and the more familiar determinant.  Admittedly, Pfaffians only apply to skew-symmetric matrices, so can they really be more fundamental than determinants?  This talk explores combinatorial interpretations of Pfaffians, determinants, and the connections between them. It showcases sign reversing involutions, a powerful and often underappreciated combinatorial method.

Bio:  Dr. Jennifer Quinn is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington Tacoma. She earned her BA, MS, and PhD from Williams College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin, respectively. Jenny has held many positions of national leadership in mathematics, including Executive Director of the Association for Women in Mathematics, co-editor of MAA’s Math Horizons, and several positions on the MAA Board of Directors (and its predecessor, the Executive Council). She received an MAA Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching and a Beckenbach Book award for Proofs That Really Count: The Art of Combinatorial Proof, co-authored with Arthur Benjamin. As a combinatorial scholar, Jenny thinks that beautiful proofs are as much art as science. Simplicity, elegance, transparency, and fun should be the driving principles. As President of MAA 2021-2022, Jenny worked strenuously to keep the MAA strong and to strengthen community during pandemic isolation. She chronicled everything in her blog Math in the Time of Corona. Serving as President was a highlight of her professional career, and she looks forward to one more year on the MAA Board of Directors as Past-President.