Talk: Prof. Po-Shen Loh
You are all invited to attend the talk of Prof. Po-Shen Loh on Thursday, January 5, 2023, 3:00 – 5:00 PM. This is an in-person event and it will be held at the Room 118, Institute of Mathematics Building. The title of his talk is “Using Math for Invention and Social Entrepreneurship in Real Life.”
The speaker, mathematician and serial innovator Po-Shen Loh, will talk about his journey developing two of his latest creations, which provide new ways to address large-scale problems in public health (https://novid.org) and education (https://live.poshenloh.com). The key to both innovations is game theory: designing new systems of rules with properly-aligned incentives. Prof. Loh will tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how those practical solutions were created through teamwork with many differently-skilled people, and then scaled up for impact.
This talk will contain real, practical advise for people aspiring to produce large-scale positive social impact, and/or build startup companies. The first half will cover the speaker’s experience using math to invent and popularize a fundamentally new way to control pandemics, which eventually made international newspapers (https://www.straightstimes.com/tech/tech-news/us-prof-keen-to-work-with-spore-on-app-that-warns-users-before-they-are-exposed-to). The second half will cover the speaker’s experience using math to create a new incentive-aligned way to scale up gifted education worldwide which also transforms opportunities among underprivileged populations (https://live.poshenloh.com), while simultaneously providing brilliant high school math students with access to professional comedians and actors who teach them powerful communication skills. Participants will be invited to ask free-form questions at the end.
This talk is specifically designed for a student audience. Along the way, many pieces of advice will be shared to help students aim their lives.
About Prof. Po-Shen Loh (Carnegie Mellon University)
Po-Shen Loh is a social entrepreneur and inventor, working across the spectrum of mathematics, education, and healthcare, all around the world. He is a math professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and the national coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad team. He has pioneered innovations ranging from a scalable way to learn challenging math live online at comparable engagement to live-streaming entertainment, to a new way to control pandemics by leveraging self-interest.
As an academic, Po-Shen has earned distinctions ranging from an International Mathematical Olympiad silver medal to the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. His scientific research considers a variety of questions that lie at the intersection of combinatorics (the study of discrete systems), probability theory, and computer science. As an educator, he was the coach of Carnegie Mellon University’s math team when it achieved its first-ever #1 rank among all North American Universities, and the coach of the USA Math Olympiad team when it achieved its first-ever pack-to-back #1-rank victories in 2018 and 2019. His research and educational outreach takes him to cities across the world, reaching over 10,000 people each year through public lectures and events, and he has featured in or co-created videos totaling over 17 million YouTube views.