Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Stelson Lecture Abstract

April 9th at 7pm
Instructional Center 103

Combining the mathematics of digital image processing with the history, craftsmanship, and science of art conservation, my research team at Duke University, Bass Connections Image Processing Algorithms for Art Conservation, spent a year working with the NC Museum of Art to study, restore, and exhibit a 14th-century altarpiece that hadn’t been displayed in its entirety for over a century.

About The Speaker

Ingrid Daubechies is a James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University, and is known for her work with wavelets in image compression and the mathematical methods that enhance image-compression technology, and for developing sophisticated image processing techniques used to help establish the authenticity and age of some of the world's most famous works of art, including paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Rembrandt. Daubechies is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Daubechies also serves on the board of directors of Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE), a program that helps women entering graduate studies in the mathematical sciences.

About the Stelson Lecture Series

Thomas Stelson was a distinguished Civil Engineer who served as the Dean of Georgia Tech's College of Engineering from 1971 to 1974, as Vice President for Research from 1974 to 1988, and as Executive Vice President from 1988 to 1990.

During the 70's and 80's, he oversaw a vast expansion in Tech's research expenditures during an era when Tech went from being primarily teaching-oriented university to a major research institution.

Stelson helped the School of Mathematics create the Center for Dynamical Systems and Nonlinear Studies, and he endowed the School's Stelson lectures in 1988 in honor of his father, Hugh Stelson, who was a mathematician. Hugh Stelson earned his doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1930 and went on to teach at Kent State University and Michigan State University. He worked on problems related to interest rates, annuities, and numerical analysis.

Recent Stelson Lectures

• Cryptography: From Ancient Times to a Post-Quantum Age  

  Pipher, Jill C. (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-03-01)

  How is it possible to send encrypted information across an insecure channel (like the internet) so that only the intended recipient can decode it, without sharing the secret key in advance? In 1976, well before this ...

• The Complexity of Random Functions of Many Variables  

  Arous, Gérard Ben (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-08-31)

  A function of many variables, when chosen at random, is typically very complex. It has an exponentially large number of local minima or maxima, or critical points. It defines a very complex landscape, the topology of its ...

• How Quantum Theory and Statistical Mechanics Gave a Polynomial of Knots  

  Jones, Vaughan (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-09-25)

  We will see how a result in von Neumann algebras (a theory developed by von Neumann to give the mathematical framework for quantum physics) gave rise, rather serendipitously, to an elementary but very useful invariant in ...

• Riemann, Boltzmann and Kantorovich Go to a Party  

  Villani, Cedric (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-04-19)

  This talk is the story of an encounter of three distinct fields: non-Euclidean geometry, gas dynamics and economics. Some of the most fundamental mathematical tools behind these theories appear to have a close connection, ...

• Role of Mathematics Across Science and Beyond  

  Glimm, James (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-11-22)

  The changing status of knowledge from descriptive to analytic, from empirical to theoretical and from intuitive to mathematical has to be one of the most striking adventures of the human spirit. The changes often occur ...

• Multiscale Modeling and Simulation: The Interplay Beween Mathematics and Engineering Applications  

  Hou, Thomas Y. (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-10-26)

  Many problems of fundamental and practical importance contain multiple scale solutions. Composite and nano materials, flow and transport in heterogeneous porous media, and turbulent flow are examples of this type. Direct ...

Gathering 4 Gardner

This Stelson Lecture is co-sponsored by the School of Mathematics, the College of Sciences, and the Gathering 4 Gardner foundation.