Department of Mathematics 2020 Mini Celebration

Descriptive Transcript

This video is a blend of text slides and self-recorded video clips. All of the professors and students featured are addressing the camera directly.

[Slide:
The Brandeis insignia is in the upper center of the blue slide. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Department of Mathematics
Celebrating the Class of 2020]

[A video plays featuring the following photos:

[Slide:
The Brandeis insignia is once again in the upper center of the blue slide. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Department of Mathematics
Celebrating the Class of 2020]

[Dmitry Kleinblock appears under a canopy of trees]

Dmitry Kleinblock: Welcome, everybody, the mathematics graduates from the class of 2020, friends and family, to the math department's mini celebration. My name is Dmitry Kleinblock. I'm the acting chair of the math department. Well, it's a difficult time for everybody and it's very sad that we can't be together under one roof to celebrate this important day for you. But of course, this milestone in your lives has to be acknowledged somehow, and so we're all gathered here in this virtual space. Let me give you a brief preview. Our program includes both live and pre-recorded portions.

Professor Huang, our undergraduate advising head, and Professor Bernardi, out graduate advising head, will read the names of our degree graduates. Some of the candidates, some of the students, some of the graduates will appear live as their names are read. Also, we'll hear prerecorded speeches by two of our degree candidates, Brian Mintz and Langte Ma, as well as a message from Professor Ruth Charney. After the ceremony, you are invited to visit the individual Zoom rooms for faculty members to say their goodbyes. This information, we'll send around by email. Now here's Professor An Huang who will read the names of our Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree recipients. Welcome, An.

[An Huang appears seated in a spacious room. As he reads the names of graduates, those present in the live call are shown briefly.]

An Huang: Thank you, Dmitry. Now, here are the candidates for the degrees of art and science in mathematics.

Harrison Adler: Thank you very much. [video: Harrison Adler waves and smiles on screen]

An Huang:

Jiyin Chen: Thank you. [video: Jiyin Chen waves at the camera]

An Huang:

Zachary Garrity: Thank you. Hi, mom. [video: Zachary Garrity in a cap and gown waves at the camera]

An Huang:

Congratulations, Class of 2020.

Dmitry Kleinblock: Congratulations. All right, this was great. Thank you, An, and again, congratulations, graduates. It was great to see so many smiling faces actually, and thanks to the technical team for spotlighting people. Now we'll hear a speech by Brian Mintz who was the recipient of this year's Shapiro Prize in Mathematics as our departmental prize, and he'll begin the PhD program in mathematics at Dartmouth in the fall. Welcome, Brian.

[Brian Mintz is shown outdoors in front of a tree.]

Brian Mintz: Hi, everyone. My name is Brian Mintz and I'm honored to be speaking today to my fellow Brandeis math majors at this significant point in our lives. I'd like to thank all the terrific faculty and staff at Brandeis for their efforts in helping us all to succeed. I continue to be amazed at how accessible professors here are. Several times, I've emailed them and gotten a response within 15 minutes, even when it was on a Saturday night. One time, I even ran into a professor at the Boston Logan Airport and we had a nice conversation. During office hours, I felt the professors here genuinely cared about our education and also about us as people.

Even before I was a Brandeis student, one professor in particular, Ruth Charney, the then undergraduate advising head, took the time to have a long conversation with me about the program here and even let me sit in on her class. I appreciate the fact that Brandeis has professors who were undergraduates like us not too long ago and others who had their PhDs before we were born. Brandeis is a uniquely wonderful community. One of the best qualities of a Brandeis education is its profound freedom of academic exploration. I know many students, myself included, have other majors or minors that have really greatly contributed to their college education.

Further, Brandeis students support and care about each other. I now take it for granted that someone will hold the door open for me and that I'll do the same in turn. When I was visiting colleges trying to decide where I wanted to go, I was being struck by the oddly positive library graffiti hanging there; "You can do this" and "This too shall pass." We're all experiencing great difficulty because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it's stressful to look towards an unsure future, I'm sure that the same determination and skills that carried us all through the math program here at Brandeis will serve to create a bright future for each and every one of us. Congratulations for graduating and I wish you all the best in your endeavors.

Dmitry Kleinblock: Thank you, Brian. This was a great speech. Now we come to the graduate portion of our celebration. Professor Olivier Bernardi will now read the names of our PhD and master degree recipients. Welcome, Olivier.

[Olivier Bernardi appears in front of a blank white wall.]

Olivier Bernardi: Thank you.

Wei Lu, Master of Arts in Mathematics and recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award 2020 [Wei waves at the camera], and Kewen Wang, Master of Arts in Mathematics [Kewen Wang waves at the camera]. Congratulations to you both.

Now, here are our candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics.

Langte Ma: Thanks, Olivier. [Langte Ma smiles at the camera]

Olivier Bernardi: …for your thesis, "Gluing and Surgery for the Casson-Seiberg-Witten Invariant of Integral Homology S1 times S3," completed under the direction of Professor Daniel Ruberman.

Congratulations, Class of 2020 [applause in background]. Now, I think we have a special celebrating video by some of our graduate students.

Eric Hanson: Congratulations to our new doctors. We can't wait until we're right there with you. [Five graduate students in a Zoom call applaud with him]

Dmitry Kleinblock: Congratulations, everybody. Well, this was great. Thank you, Olivier. Thanks to our graduate students for their well-wishes. Now, we'll hear from one of our recent PhDs who we've seen already, Langte Ma. Langte is this year's recipient of the Jerome Levine Thesis Prize for outstanding thesis, and in the fall, he is moving to Stony Brook, I don't know virtually or for real, we'll see, to work at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics there.

[Slide:
The Brandeis insignia is in the upper center of the blue slide. The text on the slide reads:
Brandeis University
Department of Mathematics
Celebrating the Class of 2020]

[Langte Ma is seated in front of a window]

Langte Ma: It's my pleasure and honor to give a speech at the mini-celebration of the graduation for the math class 2020. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have made this department a wonderful place to study and will continue to serve the department with your best efforts in the future, especially my adviser, Daniel Ruberman, for advising and encouraging me to do math over the past five years.

Thinking of my stay at Brandeis, the most outstanding feeling I have is about the elapse of time. I can still recall the scenes when I met many of you for the first time. I asked Danny where I can get some water, then he led me to the copy room. Ten minutes after I said hi to Mac we decided to read Rolfsen's book, "Knots and Links" together. During the Pre-Camp, Keith asked us which professor we would like to work with. Like all the stories, the beginning is full of hope and promise. Now it's time to say goodbye, all the hopes have concretized as one after another simple facts. These facts now have formed the reason why I feel fortunate and wonderful to study at Brandeis.

To give you a few examples, when I needed some K-Theory knowledge in my research, I found Kiyoshi a fantastic person to talk with. While I was struggling with our Karen Uhlenbeck's compactness results in the Yang-Mills theory, the news of awarding her Nobel Prize encouraged me to stay in this field.

When I heard there are some students complaining there are too much pure math, applied math become a major in this department the other year. It's kind of a magic that the department is developing and growing together with myself as I was completing my degree here. Two years ago, I asked Danny what kind of problems I should work on. He replied, "It should be unknown, workable, but most importantly, it's interesting to you." It sounds a little bit surprising to me back then because I think mathematicians are the people who solve sophisticated problems. Even if the problem is not really interesting, as long as it's meaningful, it's worth doing it. During the process of writing out my first results, I gradually recognized Danny's emphasis on being interesting. It's different from all the mathematical training I have had before. That is to say, I'm given a specific problem and I need to solve it with the tools I learned from class. Instead of staring at a single link, doing research to me is more likely to look for a chain of problems which inevitably gets myself immersed with tons of details. So most of the efforts have to be put to pin down the details in the framework of approaching the problem. If it's not for the requirements to graduate, I think the only reason I still worked out all the details is because the problems indeed were interesting and I'm curious about what's behind it.

Now, it's the end, the year 2020. I know it has been a tough year since the outbreak of coronavirus. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy and can still enjoy some math at home. For the students in the audience, I hope all of you will have further developments in math and your chosen fields. When the old passed away, all things are now new. Thank you.

Dmitry Kleinblock: I guess now everybody can hear me. Thank you, Langte. This was a great speech. I especially like the mention of the fact that we were growing together with our students. This is indeed what we were trying to do, and this semester has been especially challenging with the department trying our best to adjust to the reality as did each and every of us. We now come to the prime spot of the program. I'd like to introduce Professor Ruth Charney. Ruth is an alumna of Brandeis, currently the Berenson Professor of Mathematics, and as we all learned last fall, she's the president-elect of the American Mathematical Society, which was a great honor for Brandeis and for her, of course. Professor Charney has a few words for all of us to keep in mind during these unusual and troubling times. Welcome, Ruth.

[Ruth Charney is seated in a spacious room with a bookshelf and dresser in the background]

Ruth Charney: Hello, everyone. Congratulations to all of you out there who are graduating this term, and welcome also to family and friends. I would also like to say a special hello to those of you whom I have had the pleasure to get to know, either as students in my class or as my advisees. Let me begin my remarks by mentioning that in addition to being a professor here at Brandeis, I'm also a Brandeis alumna and I have many fond memories of my years as a student at Brandeis.

Although I know it's hard right now to take our minds off the many challenges we're facing and the endless news about the COVID epidemic, I do hope you will take this occasion to reflect on the good times and the positive experiences you have had at Brandeis. Think about the people you met and the friends you made over the past few years, some of whom will no doubt remain friends for life. Think about the faculty who mentored you and helped you envision your future. Think back on your favorite classes and how they opened your mind to new ideas, and think about other activities you participated in outside of class, whether they involve community service or some favorite hobby or just hanging out and having fun with friends. So please enjoy these memories now and then store them away to look back on in the future.

At the same time, for those of you graduating today, it's impossible to ignore the crisis we're going through right now and the uncertainty about what lies ahead. Whether you were planning to go to graduate school or take a gap year or get a job in the short term, many of you will face unexpected challenges and delays, and some of you may even opt for a complete change in plans. But let's think for a moment about the longer term. The world will emerge from the turmoil caused by this pandemic, but I believe that it will come out a somewhat different place and I believe that your generation will have an important role re-envisioning that future.

It is you who will bring the energy, the flexibility, and the vision to create a better functioning society. Let me add, since I'm speaking to an audience of budding math and science experts, that I believe those skills will undoubtedly play in a central role in this process. So my advice to you today is to look back and savor the good times you have had at Brandeis, then look forward to the future and keep your head up. We need you. There's a lot more to do and plenty of good times yet to come. So congratulations, and as a fellow alum, let me welcome you to the Brandeis Alumni community. Welcome, everyone, and thank you.

Dmitry Kleinblock: Well, okay, since I'm unmuted, I can clap my hands. This was really a beautiful speech, very well said. Finally, here's a bunch of messages from the faculty and staff of our department. We can't be in the same room with you now as we normally would but you'll see how we all managed to get into your computer screens. Here we go.

[A Zoom call with all the professors of the math department is shown. As each one speaks, the camera zooms in to their screen. All are seated in various places of their home.]

Mark Adler: Congratulations, students. You've done a great job. This has been very difficult times. This is a great helpful challenge to you. You had four good years or more, or five, and we're very proud of you.

Bong Lian: Hello, graduating Brandeis PhD. I want to congratulate you for a job well done. As I always like to say to my students, welcome to adulthood and good luck to you.

Keith Merril: Just want to say congratulations to all of you. We're very proud. You've worked very hard. We're proud both of the accomplishments you've already done and the many accomplishments we know lie ahead for you in years to come.

Lam Pham: Congratulations, for graduating. You made it. It was an unreal time, but you really made it. So good luck for the future.

Olivier Bernardi: Hey, everyone. I wanted to congratulate you. I think you can all be very proud of what you have accomplished and I wish you the best for your future.

Daniel Ruberman: So congratulations to everyone, to all of you for finishing your studies in such a challenging year. Wish you the best luck in the future.

Thomas Fai: Congratulations, students and class of 2020. We're so proud of all that you've accomplished and we're looking forward to hearing about all of your accomplishments.

Rebecca Torrey: Congratulations, class of 2020. We are so proud of you and we can't wait to see what you do in the future.

John Wilmes: Congratulations to all graduates from my department. Thanks to all of you who I had the pleasure of teaching in my classes, for all of your hard work, and for those of you who I had the pleasure of interacting with. Thanks.

Emily Palmer: I just want to say congratulations to all the graduating students. Please come back and visit and share your wisdom with our current students.

An Huang: Congratulations to everyone and we are so proud of you for your achievements. I hope you to come back some time in the future.

Yoosik Kim: I want to say congratulations on your graduation and achievement. I wish you the best of luck in your future.

Joel Bellaiche: Hello. Congratulations to everyone for graduating this year, for all the things you have learned and done and I wish you the best for the future.

Ruth Charney: Hello. I'm super proud of all of you for making it this far. I so enjoyed having many of you in my classes back when there were real classes. So congratulations, keep your head up, there really is more good stuff to come ahead.

Dmitry Kleinblock: Congratulations. Great job. It was a difficult time and we've made it. I wish you luck in the future and please come visit us again. We're very proud of you.

Catherine Broderick: Congratulations to the class of 2020. I've so much enjoyed working with you every day and seeing you everyday. Hope you will come back to visit.

[The Zoom call returns to gallery view as all professors applaud]

Dmitry Kleinblock: Okay. Well, let me applaud again. Probably we should clap for this round of applause for everyone. It's time to wrap it up now. I'd like to thank all of you for coming today and thanks also to our amazing technical staff; Edwin Gonzales, Daniel Jennings, and John Pizzi. They were incredibly helpful and it worked. We hope that you will all join the faculty Zoom rooms. You have the Zoom room link in your email so that you can say goodbye to everybody, to your instructors, to your friends in person. We will leave you now with the Alma Mater Chorus recorded remotely by Brandeis students.

[Slide:
An opaque blue slide shows the Brandeis University logo with the insignia on its left, centered on the slide. The text below it reads:
The Brandeis Alma Mater
performed by the
Brandeis Chamber Singers
Dr. Robert Duff, conductor]

A Zoom video call shows each singer in a collage view. As they sing, a video of campus landmarks feature:

"To thee, Alma Mater
We'll always be true
All hail to thy standard
The white and the blue
Proclaiming thy future
Recalling thy past
Our hopes spring from mem'ries eternally cast
With sorrows we'll leave thee
New worlds to create
May deeds of thy children
Make thee forever great
May deeds of thy children
Make thee forever great!"