Welcome to Carry the Two, the podcast about how math and statistics impact the world around us from the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation. While we’re in between our more in-depth seasons, we like to bring you something a little different in mini-season format. And for this mini season, we are going to highlight some of the amazing researchers who have presented at IMSI over the past year. Our fourth guest isKunal Marwaha, a PhD student at the University of Chicago studying q...
Mar 20, 2025•21 min
Welcome to Carry the Two, the podcast about how math and statistics impact the world around us from the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation. While we’re in between our more in-depth seasons, we like to bring you something a little different in mini-season format. And for this mini season, we are going to highlight some of the amazing researchers who have presented at IMSI over the past year. Our third guest is Frank Wolak, a professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford ...
Mar 11, 2025•39 min
Welcome to Carry the Two, the podcast about how math and statistics impact the world around us from the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation. While we’re in between our more in-depth seasons, we like to bring you something a little different in mini-season format. And for this mini season, we are going to highlight some of the amazing researchers who have presented at IMSI over the past year. Our second guest is Maria Chan,a scientist at Argonnne National Laboratory working at t...
Feb 12, 2025•24 min
Welcome to Carry the Two, the podcast about how math and statistics impact the world around us from the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation. While we’re in between our more in-depth seasons, we like to bring you something a little different in mini-season format. And for this mini season, we are going to highlight some of the amazing researchers who have presented at IMSI over the past year. Our first guest is Thibaut Mastrolia, an assistant professor at the Industrial Engineer...
Jan 23, 2025•25 min
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this, the sixth and final episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into both how surveys and polls are conducted and how they are reported. For the former we are joined by David Dutwin Senior Vice President at NORC and Chie...
Oct 31, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 6
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the fifth episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into political numbers and statistics. Helping Sam and Sadie do the digging is Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, FRS, OBE, emeritus professor of statistics a...
Oct 23, 2024•33 min•Season 4Ep. 5
In this episode, the fourth episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we dig into two stories about the intersection of political geography and mathematics. The first story comes from Ranthony Clark and is about her work with the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group around identifying communities of interest, with a focus on her in Ohio alongside CAIR Ohio , the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) , the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission , and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of...
Oct 17, 2024•36 min•Season 4Ep. 4
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this, the third episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak to Andrea Mock, Gunnar Carlsson, Samin Aref, and Zachary Neal. We dig into what mathematics has to say about the stability of political coalitions, how mediators ca...
Oct 09, 2024•30 min•Season 4Ep. 3
We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the second episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak again with mathematician Ismar Volić of Wellesley College and Director of the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy and Theodore R. Johnson, a scholar of...
Oct 02, 2024•34 min•Season 4Ep. 2
IMSI is very proud to announce that Carry the Two is back and with a new co-host, IMSI’s new Director of Communications and Engagement Sam Hansen! We in the United States are deep in the middle of a major national election, and over half of the world’s population also have elections in 2024. This is why Carry the Two is going to focus on the intersection of mathematics and democracy for our new season. In this episode, the first episode of our mathematics and democracy season, we speak with math...
Sep 25, 2024•53 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Find our transcript here: LINK Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (mastodon) https://sciencemastodon.com/@IMSI, (instagram) IMSI.institute Follow Sadie Witkowski: https://www.sadiewit.com/, @SadieWit This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348....
Sep 19, 2023•6 min
In this classic episode, we explore how GPT-3, a free online natural language processing artificial intelligence by Open AI, does and doesn’t work. Make sure to stick around until the end for an update on how AI is a core demand between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. GPT-3 takes advantage of a whole new method of artificial intelligence research, called neural nets, to create plays, write code, and even roleplay as a historical figure. B...
Sep 05, 2023•40 min
Were you impressed by the underwater scenes in Avatar 2? Have you spent hours trying to figure out how they built the ice wall in Game of Thrones? Everything from big effects like these to smaller hidden visual effects like creating a skyline for an indoor set fall under the purview of visual effects. In this episode of Carry the Two , we get a behind-the-scenes tour of how Fuse FX effects supervisor Jamie Barty from I’m a Virgo leads a team to achieve these effects - and the copious amounts of ...
Aug 22, 2023•30 min
Could a fungus really wipe out the majority of humans, as shown in the HBO (Max) series The Last of Us ? How realistic is the show’s portrayal of epidemiology? Guest and project scientist at UCLA, Tara Kerin explores these questions and how statistics are a core tool in her field of research. Find our transcript here: LINK Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links: The San Diego Comic Con International masquerade ball: https://www.comic-con.org/cci/newsletter/sunday How to calculat...
Aug 08, 2023•18 min
The world, and the US in particular, have a complicated history with nuclear fission. Splitting atoms led to both the development of nuclear energy and weapons with catastrophic power. In the film Oppenheimer , director Christopher Nolan explores these issues. Here we expand this examination to the seminal work done in the Midwest. In this episode of Carry the Two, we speak with nuclear engineer from the University of Wisconsin, Paul Wilson, and University of Chicago physicist, Robert Rosner. Th...
Jul 25, 2023•32 min
If you’ve seen the first season of Apple TV’s Foundation, you probably noticed how heavily the show relies on ideas based in mathematics and statistics. However, while the idea of a field of research called psycho-history seems far-fetched, some of the show's scenes are much closer to reality than you might realize. In this episode, we hear from planetary physicist and television science advisor Kevin Grazier about how researchers can help advise TV projects and what that actually looks like. Fi...
Jul 11, 2023•25 min
We're taking a short break to prepare for our next series of episodes, looking at mathematics and statistics in Hollywood. So stay tuned! Find our transcript here: LINK Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute , (twitter) @IMSI_institute , (instagram) IMSI.institute Music by Blue Dot Sessions. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348....
Jun 27, 2023•2 min
Predicting weather is already a difficult statistical challenge, but it becomes even more complex when trying to predict rare weather events. Dan Cooley, a professor in the statistics department at Colorado State University, uses extreme value analysis to model these rare events. In today’s episode, we ask Dan how his work can help explain the changing frequency and severity of wildfires in Colorado and how climate change might be playing a key role. Don’t forget to listen to Dan’s work through ...
Jun 13, 2023•23 min
Researchers become interested in their fields through all sorts of unique paths. Today’s guest, Angel Hsu of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, came to climate research from a public policy background. She uses her work to help inform local communities how policy decisions affect different groups’ risk to extreme heat and the heat island effect. Specifically, she uses local and global data sets to track heat stress across city neighborhoods and show how those can differ based on neighborh...
Jun 06, 2023•25 min
Today we speak with a non-mathematician who uses mathematical tools to understand our planet’s past climates and what they might be able to tell us about our future. Matt Huber, from Purdue University, tells us how the paleoclimate had sudden, rapid shifts in the climate that our current climate models aren’t good at predicting. So, if we’re on the precipice of another rapid shift, we might need to start employing different models. And don’t forget to listen to Matt’s work through a geophysical ...
May 30, 2023•26 min
Turn on the news during the spring and you’ll hear how seasonal allergies are being made worse by climate change. But it turns out the seasonal sniffles are some of the smallest health consequences of our rapidly shifting climate. Droughts and floods don’t just damage the local ecosystem, they also have real, measurable effects on human health. In this episode of Carry the Two, we hear from University of Washington’s Kristie Ebi, who has helped lead research on the health impacts of climate chan...
May 23, 2023•24 min
We are continuing our collaboration between Carry the Two and the American Geophysical Union’s Third Pod from the Sun with another episode! Jane Baldwin’s research centers issues of equity when it comes to understanding climate change’s impact on the global population. In this episode, we hear how Jane gets clever with data sources to better understand risk and vulnerability to tropical cyclones in the Philippines and discusses the importance of building useful climate models. And don’t forget t...
May 16, 2023•23 min
Welcome to the first episode of Carry the Two’s collaboration with the American Geophysical Union’s Third Pod from the Sun! In this episode, we get our feet wet with physical oceanographer, Maike Sonnewald. Maike explains how the ocean currents interplay with our warming atmosphere and what that means for our climate. Using machine learning to build climate models, Maike analyzes how things like greenhouse gases are warming our oceans and changing the pattern of currents. And don’t forget to lis...
May 09, 2023•25 min
We’re still celebrating Mathematical and Statistical Awareness Month here at Carry the Two. This time, we’re taking a look at how anyone can get involved with research and help move mathematics (or statistics) forward. We explore the differences between citizen science, community science, and crowd sourcing and how one group of researchers used an international scavenger hunt to collect data. Find our transcript here: LINK Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links: Peer-reviewed ar...
Apr 25, 2023•27 min
Happy Mathematical and Statistical Awareness Month! To celebrate, hosts Sadie and Ian decided to take a peek behind the curtain and see what it is that pure mathematicians do all day. This episode follows a conversation with University of Chicago Math Professor Benson Farb as he explains how he approaches mentoring future mathematicians and what got him into his field in the first place. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot more about luck and timing than you’d expect! Find our transcript here: LINK Curiou...
Apr 11, 2023•35 min
We're taking a short break to prepare for the rest of Season 2 and our collaboration with AGU’s Third Pod from the Sun. So stay tuned! Find our transcript here: LINK Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute , (twitter) @IMSI_institute , (instagram) IMSI.institute This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348....
Mar 28, 2023•2 min
We have another guest host this episode, with Jude Higdon. Jude is the Chief Information Officer at Bennington College and co-founder of the QSIDE Institute. Jude led the charge during IMSI’s Research Collaboration Workshop that was aimed at addressing small town policing. Using the road map laid out by the Small Town Policing Accountability (SToPA) Lab, Jude’s team developed a toolkit for procuring, structuring, and analyzing policing data in small towns that lack the resources and systems to m...
Mar 14, 2023•32 min
Joining the helm as cohost, Bates Professor Carrie Diaz Eaton leads this week’s exploration of how to build a data science tool, not just for local activists, but with them. We begin with how the partnership between the environmental justice leadership program Nuevas Voces and Carrie’s team of interdisciplinary math researchers first met. Then, we hear from the members of Carrie’s Research Collaboration Workshop team as they worked at a breakneck pace here at IMSI to have a completed prototype b...
Feb 28, 2023•30 min
