Speaker: Moon Duchin (Tufts)

Title: Exploring the (massive) space of graph partitions

Abstract: The problem of electoral redistricting can be set up as a search of the space of partitions of a graph (representing the units of a state or other jurisdiction) subject to constraints (state and federal rules about the properties of districts).  I’ll survey the problem and some approaches to studying it, with an emphasis on the deep mathematical questions it raises, from combinatorial enumeration to discrete differential geometry to dynamics.