PHILADELPHIA, PA — Mathematics, computer code, and music will converge in unexpected and visually striking ways during the 2025 I.E. Block Community Lecture, delivered by Dr. Timothy A. Davis, professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. The talk, hosted by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), is free and open to the public, and will take place July 30 during the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings.
Dr. Davis, a recognized authority in sparse matrix algorithms, is best known for his creation of SuiteSparse, a software library widely used in commercial and scientific applications including MATLAB, Google Street View, and Pokémon Go. His work also underpins technologies found in every Apple device, from iPhones to MacBooks.
In the upcoming lecture, titled “An Unexpected Journey: from Music to Art Via Math,” Dr. Davis will explore how his expertise in matrix visualization led him to create digital artwork derived from musical compositions. The talk promises a deep dive into how mathematics and computer science—disciplines often viewed as abstract or utilitarian—can be used to produce visually captivating and creative expressions.
“Math and code are beautiful, so they say, but are often underappreciated by the untrained eye,” Dr. Davis noted. “With the right techniques, visual beauty can be found in matrices, music, and math.”
A long-time contributor to the scientific community, Davis has earned widespread recognition for his academic work. He is a SIAM Fellow (2013), ACM Fellow (2014), and IEEE Fellow (2016). He also received the 2018 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation and the 2021 Computing Society Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences for his pioneering work in roundoff-error-free matrix factorization.
The annual I.E. Block Community Lecture is designed to make applied mathematics accessible and engaging for the broader public, and Dr. Davis’s talk is expected to highlight the interdisciplinary creativity that emerges when art and science intersect.
The lecture is sponsored in part by Tourisme Montréal and will be livestreamed and archived on SIAM’s YouTube channel.
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