Elie Ayache is CEO and co-founder of ITO 33, a Paris-based financial software company and a leading specialist in the pricing of convertible bonds, in the equity-to-credit problem, and more generally, in the calibration and recalibration of volatility surfaces. Ayache was trained as an engineer at l’École Polytechnique of Paris, from which he graduated in 1987. He then pursued a career of option market-maker on the floor of MATIF (1987–1990) and LIFFE (1990–1995). Later he turned to the philosophy of probability (DEA at la Sorbonne in 1995) and to the technology of derivative pricing (creating ITO 33 in 1999). Ayache published many articles in the Wilmott magazine (from 2001) on the philosophy of contingent claims, drawing both on his philosophical background and on his experience as a financial engineer and technology developer. His research culminated in The Blank Swan: The End of Probability (Wiley 2010), a book whose purpose is to free the pricing of derivatives, and more generally the concept of price and the market, from the probability paradigm.
Sian L. Beilock is a professor of psychology and a member of the Committee on Education at The University of Chicago. Her research program sits at the intersection of cognitive science and education. She explores the cognitive and neural substrates of skill learning, as well as the mechanisms by which performance breaks down in high-pressure situations. Dr. Beilock uses converging methodologies in her research—ranging from behavioral performance measures (e.g., reaction time and accuracy), to physiological measures of stress (e.g., salivary cortisol), to neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRI). In addition to answering basic questions about cognition, the goal of her research program is to inform educational practice and policy.
Jim Bennett is a visiting keeper at the Science Museum, London, having retired in 2012 from his position as director of the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford, where he also held the title of Professor of the History of Science. In 2001 he was awarded the Paul Bunge Prize by the German Chemical Society for work in the history of scientific instruments.
Philip J. Davis holds a doctoral degree from Harvard and is currently professor emeritus in the Division of Applied Mathematics, Brown University. He is known for his work on numerical methods and approximation theory, as well as for his writings on the history and philosophy of mathematics. His Mathematical Experience, written jointly with Reuben Hersh, in 1981 won a National Book Award in Science.
Kelly Delp received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently an assistant professor in the Mathematics Department at Buffalo State College and will be moving to Ithaca College in the fall of 2013. Her primary mathematical interests are in geometric topology. She enjoys making things, mathematical and otherwise. When visiting Cornell University in the spring of 2010, she began a project with Bill Thurston building surfaces out of paper and craft foam. She presented this work at the 2011 Bridges Mathematics and Art conference, where she gave the keynote address.
Prakash Gorroochurn is an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University. He is also a statistical consultant in the School of Social Work. He is an associate editor of the journal BMC Genetics, and his main areas of research interest include mathematical population genetics, genetic epidemiology, and the history of probability and statistics. His book Classic Problems of Probability won the 2012 PROSE Award for Mathematics from the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence.
Gregory Goth is a freelance journalist in Oakville, Connecticut. He has been a reporter and editor at weekly and daily newspapers in upstate New York, a staff editor for the former LACMA Physician, a medical policy and economics magazine published by the Los Angeles County Medical Association, and also a staff editor for Computer, the flagship magazine of the IEEE Computer Society. As a contributing editor, he has had work published in IEEE Software, Computing in Science and Engineering, IEEE Internet Computing, Communications of the ACM, and numerous other publications. He is currently a contributing editor for Health Data Management magazine’s Healthcare Innovation Center, a website that chronicles the latest advances in healthcare networking infrastructure, clinical technologies, and where the two intersect.
Renan Gross is currently studying for his undergraduate degree in mathematics and physics at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. His interests include diverse topics from many fields, including computability and the origin of life. He also dabbles in science education and has mentored in an international youth science camp, Summer School of Science. Programming is one of his greatest passions, and he enjoys both writing programs to help his studies as well as learning new paradigms. In his spare time he plays the piano, sometimes with an ensemble, and enjoys cycling and slacklining.
Kevin Hartnett writes the Brainiac column for the Boston Globe’s Sunday Ideas section, where he covers news from the worlds of art, science, literature, and history. His writing as a freelance journalist has also appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Observer, among other publications. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife and two young children.
Soren Johnson is an independent game designer. Previously he was a design director at Zynga, working on browser-based strategy games. In 2007, Johnson joined EA Maxis to work on Spore as a senior designer and programmer. While at EA, he also was the lead designer on Dragon Age Legends. Before that, he spent seven years at Firaxis, where he was the project lead and lead designer and programmer for Sid Meier’s Civilization IV. He also programmed the artificial intelligence and was codesigner of Civilization III. Johnson writes a design column for Game Developer Magazine and is a member of the GDC advisory board. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University. His thoughts on game design can be found at www.designer-notes.com.
Donald E. Knuth is a professor emeritus of computer programming at Stanford University. Among his books are four volumes (so far) of The Art of Computer Programming, five volumes of Computers & Typesetting, nine volumes of collected papers, and a nontechnical book entitled 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated. His software systems TeX and METAFONT are extensively used for book publishing throughout the world. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1974, the National Medal of Science from President Carter in 1979, the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society in 1986, the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation in 1996, and the Frontiers of Knowledge Award from the BBVA Foundation in 2010.
Bob (David R.) Lloyd was a professor of general chemistry at Trinity College Dublin for 23 years until his retirement in 2000; previously he worked at the University of Birmingham. He is a fellow of the (London) Institute of Physics, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Most of his research work was concerned with the electronic structure of molecules, both free and interacting with metal surfaces, studied by various photoemission methods. In retirement, he has been working on Plato’s geometrical theory of the elements, in particular on the importance of symmetry for an understanding of Plato’s constructions. He has publications about this topic in journals devoted to classical studies, and to the philosophy of chemistry, and he has also found errors in more recent discussions of the Platonic solids, including the paper that appears here.
Erin A. Maloney is a postdoctoral scholar in psychology at The University of Chicago. She received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, in 2011. Her research program sits at the intersection of cognitive psychology, social psychology, and education. Maloney explores the cognitive and social factors that influence performance in mathematics, focusing on the role of numerical competency, anxiety, and stereotypes in math achievement. Her research takes place both in the lab studying adults and in the classroom studying young children, their teachers, and their parents. In addition to answering basic questions about cognition, with her research, Maloney aims to inform educational practice and policy.
John Pavlus is a filmmaker and writer interested in science, math, design, technology, and other ways that people make things make sense. His work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired, Fast Company, Technology Review, and elsewhere. He creates original short films and documentaries with partners including NPR, Autodesk, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and The New York Times Magazine via his production company, Small Mammal. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Sir Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He received the 1988 Wolf Prize in physics for his contribution with Stephen Hawking in understanding the universe. He is the author of several books, including The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton University Press).
Frank Quinn has contributed extensively to the study of manifolds, stratified sets, and algebraic K-theory. He is best known for his work on 4-manifolds and is a leading practitioner of visualizing subtle things in four dimensions. His unorthodox views on mathematics might be influenced by this. He has been a professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech for more than 35 years.
Fiona Donaghey Ross teaches fine art at the University of Richmond. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures are in the collections of Capital One, Wachovia Securities, Markel Corporation, and the Republic of Ireland. Her works have been featured in many national and international exhibitions, including Zone: Chelsea in New York City, the Seoul Hae-Tae Gallery in South Korea, and the Shang Shang Gallery in Beijing, China. She is a recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Artist Grant and is a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Ross’s work has been published in books, such as Ceramics: Mastering the Craft, and magazines, including Korean Ceramics Monthly and New American Paintings. She is represented in Richmond, Virginia, by the Page Bond Gallery.
William T. Ross is the Roger Francis and Mary Saunders Richardson Chair in Mathematics, and chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at the University of Richmond. He is the author of more than 30 research papers, as well as four monographs on complex analysis and operator theory. He is also a painter.
Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has been writing about physics and mathematics for two decades. He is the author of five books, including Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000), which won the 2000 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction; Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking (2008), which won the 2009 Davis Prize from the History of Science Society; and Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception (2010).
Anna Sfard is a professor of mathematics education at the University of Haifa. She served as Lappan-Philips-Fitzgerald Professor at Michigan State University and is a visiting professor in the Institute of Education, University of London, in the United Kingdom. Her research, focusing on the development and role of mathematical discourses in individual lives and in the course of history, has been summarized in her book, Thinking as Communicating. She is the recipient of the 2007 Freudenthal Award.
Daniel S. Silver is a professor of mathematics at the University of South Alabama. Much of his published research explores the relationship between knots and dynamical systems. Other active interests include the history of science and the psychology of invention. He has contributed articles of general interest to American Scientist and Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
Ian Stewart is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick. His research areas include pattern formation, networks, and biomathematics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded its Michael Faraday Medal for the public understanding of science. He has written many popular mathematics books, including 17 Equations that Changed the World and Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities.
Terence Tao was born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1975. He has been a professor of mathematics at UCLA since 1999, after completing his Ph,D, under Elias Stein at Princeton in 1996. Tao’s areas of research include harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, combinatorics, and number theory. He has received a number of awards, including the Salem Prize in 2000, the Bochner Prize in 2002, the Fields Medal and the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in 2006, the MacArthur Fellowship and Ostrowski Prize in 2007, the Waterman Award in 2008, the Nemmers Prize in 2010, and the Crafoord Prize in 2012. Terence Tao also currently holds the James and Carol Collins Chair in Mathematics at UCLA, and is a fellow of the Royal Society, the Australian Academy of Sciences (corresponding member), the National Academy of Sciences (foreign member), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.