On April 18^th, The Fields Institute held its inaugural thesis competition in collaboration with TEDxUofT. Doctoral students studying any form of mathematics from across Ontario competed to see who could best present their thesis topic within three minutes.

The audience laughed and cheered as they heard presentations on financial math, elliptic curves, L-functions, big data, medical imaging, and more.

Judges Pierre Roquet from TEDxUofT, Jean-Marie De Koninck from Université Laval, Arvind Gupta from the University of Toronto and UBC, and Tom Salisbury of the Fields Institute and York University, had such a hard time choosing the three winners that they added three honourable mentions.

Congratulations to our top presenters:

1. Grey Kuling – York University - How Texture Will Change the Course of Multiple Sclerosis
2. Thomas Bury – University of Waterloo - Predicting Critical Transitions in Nature and Society
3. Tyrone Ghaswala – University of Waterloo - Pac-Man and Donuts

Honourable Mentions:

• Helen Cheyne – York University - Improving Quantitative Credit Estimates with Big Data
• Anton Mosunov – University of Waterloo - Theory of Elliptic Curves. A History in Portraits.
• Sawitree Boonpatcharanon – York University - Digestion Data by Clustering

Though all the presentations were interesting, the judges felt that “the winners were able to present complex mathematical concepts in a particularly engaging and accessible manner.”

Winners will have the opportunity to expand their talks for a TED^xUofT^xFields Institute salon later this summer.

Thanks to all our judges and presenters for making this inaugural event such a success and stay tuned for details about the TED^xUofT^xFields Institute salon!

Check out the whole photo album on our Facebook page!

For media inquiries please contact:
Malgosia Ip, Communications/Development Officer
The Fields Institute
222 College Street, 2nd Floor
Toronto ON Canada M5T 3J1
Phone 416-348-9710 ext. 3024