Episode #14: Mathematics

ASEF Podcast

Why is it important to research mathematics? Do we discover maths, or do we invent it? What is the research purpose in the fields of topology and graphs? In which fields of mathematics does Slovenia have strong research groups? How does the research environment in Slovenia differ from other countries?
In Episode 14, we talk with ASEF professors Bojan Mohar, Sara Kališnik, and Andrej Bauer. Listen as they discuss the field of mathematics.

• Bojan Mohar is a world-recognized mathematician in the field of graph theory. He is a Canada Research Chair in Graph Theory at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, and a Full Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Ljubljana, was a post-doctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University, and was a Fullbright Visiting Scholar at the Ohio State University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Mathematical Society, and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He received the John L. Synge Award and the prestigious Euler Medal. The Republic of Slovenia awarded him the Ambassador of Science Award.
• Sara Kališnik is a Senior Scientist in the Department of Mathematics at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on using methods from pure mathematics to study data. She is the co-director of the Applied Algebraic Topology Research Network, which hosts a popular weekly Online Seminar. She obtained her Ph.D. at Stanford University and performed post-doctoral research at Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences. In the academic year 2020/2021, she was an Assistant Professor at Bentley University. Her research focuses on applied algebraic topology.
• Andrej Bauer is a professor at the University of Ljubljana. He obtained his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University and received the School of Computer Science Distinguished Dissertation Award for his Ph.D. thesis. He was the main coordinator for the 47th International Mathematical Olympiad held in Slovenia. In 2022 he received the American Mathematical Society Levi L. Conant Prize for the article “Five stages of accepting constructive mathematics.”

The ASEF Podcast host is Tanja Janko, a Master's Student of Chemistry at the University of Zurich. She was an ASEF Fellow in 2019 with Dr. Dimitri Krainc at Northwestern University.