Seminar Schedule
We bring in a variety of speakers to campus to talk about things that might not normally be covered in our classes.
When possible, these seminars are recorded and made available to current students and faculty/staff in this Google Drive folder (requires 1Hope login).
Unless otherwise noted, all seminars take place from 11–11:50 a.m. in VanderWerf room 102.
Spring 2025
January 16 — Summer project presentations
Professors Cusack, Jipping, McFall, and Olagbemi will present their summer research / software development projects.
January 30 — Dr. Nathan Vance
Dr. Vance (’17) will explore the meaning of data models in two domains. First, he will survey remote photoplethysmography, a computer vision technique for inferring a subject’s heart rate from video data. We show how it is possible to determine what parts of this problem are handled by different parts of the model. Second, he will survey a technique from natural language processing, Word2Vec, which can be used to model the relationship between words. He will show how this is used as a practical tool for autocorrect software.
February 13 — Travis McGeehan
Speedrun Science: The tech behind TASBot
February 18 (Tuesday) — Dr. Catherine Welsh
Detection of mitochondrial DNA variants from next-generation sequencing data
The advent of next-generation sequencing technologies has revolutionized how biologists measure DNA, RNA and protein. The size and complexity of the resulting datasets have led to a new era where computational methods are essential to answering important biological questions. In this talk, I will describe both a tool for finding mitochondrial deletions and a computational pipeline for locating and categorizing mitochondrial mutations in whole-genome sequencing data. I’ll explain our results when applied to cohorts of sequencing data and finish the talk by discussing how computer science algorithms play an essential role in these analyses.
February 25 (Tuesday) — Dr. DIVya nimma
March 6— Trevor Meiste
Trevor will talk about his experience with software development in the avionics industry.
March 25 (Tuesday, 4-6 P.M.) — Counted Out
The movie Counted Out will be shown free of charge at the Knickerbocker Theater, courtesy of the General Education Council and Mathematics and Statistics Department.
In our information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get — all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand or even notice.
April 10 — Ben Hilldore, Gentex
Topic to be determined
April 23 (Wednesday, 4–6 P.M.) — senior capstone showcase
Come see the work completed by our senior capstone students on projects titled ASPIRES, Roadside, and Use It or Lose It. These presentations will take place in Van Zoeren 142.
April 24 — Dr. Matt Dejongh
Dr. DeJongh will give his Last Lecture before he retires at the end of the spring 2025 semester.
Interested in giving a Seminar?If you have an idea for a seminar that you would like to present, send an email to the department chair person (cschair@hope.edu)
VanderWerf Hall27 Graves PlaceRoom 204Holland, MI 49423
workP. 616.395.7510
cschair@hope.edu