Department of Mathematical Sciences

CARL J. REES DISTINGUISHED LECTURER SERIES

The Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware is pleased to sponsor the Carl J. Rees Distinguished Lecturer Series in memory of Professor Carl Rees and in honor of his distinguished contributions and service to the Mathematics Department and the University.

Carl Rees had a distinguished career at the University of Delaware from 1920 until his retirement in 1967. He advanced through the professorial ranks to Professor of Mathematics and served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics for ten years. He was appointed Dean of the College of Graduate Studies as well as Provost of the University, serving simultaneously in these important posts for a number of years. He served his country in both World War I and World War II and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by General H. H. (Hap) Arnold for his work as an operations analyst.

PROF. JOEL SPENCER
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPT. AT NYU

Joel Spencer is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. His work lies at the intersection of Discrete Mathematics, Probability, and Theoretical Computer Science, with a dash of Logic. His specialty is The Probabilistic Method, a methodology designed by his mentor, the late Paul Erdos. He has written several books, including Ramsey Theory (with Ron Graham and Bruce Rothschild), The Probabilistic Method (with Noga Alon), and, most recently, The Strange Logic of Random Graphs. He founded (with Michael Karonski) the journal Random Structures & Algorithms. He was a Sloan Fellow, a Putnam competition winner, winner of the Ford award (for expository writing) and writer of Brain Bogglers for Discover Magazine. He helped design and chaired the Young Scholars Committee of the American Math Society, which supports Math Camps for the talented high school students. He has been a visitor at the Math Institute in Hungary, the Weizmann Institute in Israel, the University of Reading in the U.K., M.I.T. (several times), the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, the Institute for Advance Study, the University of Melbourne and, currently Microsoft.