Dr. Jen McIntosh is a UCI alum who started at the National Security Agency (NSA) over 15 years ago as an Applied Research Mathematician. Her journey with NSA has been typically atypical, in that most mathematicians have a world of choice and opportunities to explore as interests and mission needs evolve - whether math-y or not.

Currently she is in the Senior Technical Development Program (STDP), a mid- to late-career program designed to foster expertise in areas of strategic importance to the Agency. Her current passion is bridging math, psychology, business, and other areas that make up decision science - enhancing decision-making with information and data.

She'll talk a little about her journey, the diversity of mathematical fields she's practiced (from common sense to cryptanalysis), and she'll dedicate most of the time for questions about life at NSA and the wealth of career opportunities for mathematicians at any phase of their careers.

Grading can be a burden.  We'll discuss some ideas for making your grading more efficient without compromising the feedback provided to the students.

Metrics whose Ricci tensor vanishes are called Ricci-flat, and many interesting examples of these metrics arise in the Kahler setting. I will present some background of K3 surfaces, which give fundamental examples of Ricci-flat Kahler metrics.   

I will present a result in combinatorial number theory due to Renling Jin:  if A and B are subsets of the natural numbers with positive Banach density, then their sum A+B is piecewise syndetic, a robust notion of largeness for subsets of the natural numbers.  The result bears a resemblance to a theorem of real analysis due to Steinhaus:  if C and D are subsets of the real line with positive Lebesgue measure, then their sum C+D contains an interval.  We will in fact see that these two theorems are both specific instances of a more general theorem using the language of nonstandard analysis.