Baylor Lecture Series in Mathematics
The aim of this lecture series was to bring in mathematicians who are nationally and internationally recognized for their research and contributions to mathematics. Funds were made available for this lecture series, started in 2007, by the Baylor administration; special thanks to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for their generous support.
16th Annual Baylor Lecture Series in Mathematics
Speaker: Nick Trefethen
Nick Trefethen is Professor of Applied Mathematics in Residence at Harvard University; during 1997-2023 he was Professor of Numerical Analysis and head of the Numerical Analysis Group at the University of Oxford. He was educated at Harvard and Stanford and held positions at NYU, MIT, and Cornell in earlier years. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the US National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and served during 2011-2012 as President of SIAM. He has won many prizes including the Gold Medal of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, the Naylor Prize of the London Mathematical Society, the Polya and von Neumann Prizes from SIAM, and the Gibbs Lectureship from the American Mathematical Society. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Fribourg and Stellenbosch University.
As an author Trefethen is known for his books including Numerical Linear Algebra (1997), Spectral Methods in MATLAB (2000), Spectra and Pseudospectra (2005), Approximation Theory and Approximation Practice (2013/2019), Exploring ODEs (2018), and An Applied Mathematician's Apology (2022). He organized the SIAM 100-Dollar, 100-Digit Challenge in 2002 and is the inventor of Chebfun and co-inventor of the AAA algorithm for rational approximation.
Trefethen's research interests since 2017 have been focused on algorithms for computing with rational functions.
For a poster advertising Professor Trefethen's public lecture, click here (TBA).
Dr. Trefethen's lectures and abstracts, dates and venues, are:
PUBLIC LECTURE:
The AAA Algorithm for Rational Approximation
Thursday, October 29, 2026, at 4:00 pm - Marrs McLean Science MMSCI - 101
Abstract: With the introduction of the AAA algorithm in 2018 (Nakatsukasa-Sete-T., SISC), the computation of rational
approximations changed from a hard problem to an easy one. We've been exploring the implications of this transformation ever since. This talk will review the algorithm and then present demonstrations of applications in areas including interpolation of missing data, analytic continuation, analysis of solutions of dynamical systems, model order reduction, computation of complex resonances, numerical computation of the Schwarz function, and solution of planar Laplace, Stokes, and Helmholtz problems.
COLLOQUIUM LECTURE:
Quadrature = Rational Approximation
Friday, October 30, 2026, at 3:30 pm - Marrs McLean Science MMSCI - 301
Abstract: Whenever you see a string of quadrature nodes, you can consider it as a branch cut defined by the poles of a rational approximation to the Cauchy transform of a weight function. The aim of this talk is to explain this statement and show how it opens the way to calculation of targeted quadrature formulas for all kinds of applications. Gauss quadrature is an example, but it is just the starting point, and many more examples will be shown. I hope this talk will change your understanding of quadrature formulas. This is joint work with Andrew Horning.