Formerly, I was more casual about it, but now I am becoming more organized. I am first offering the talk below at Iona as a "test-drive". Once I feel it is a "good" talk, I will offer it to three or four local high schools. In particular, graduating seniors, after the AP exams are over in May, often have a rather empty month at the end of the year, and high school teachers are so busy, that it is a win-win-win situation for all three groups involved.

• Fordham University Math Club. ``Mathematics on Clay Tablets.'' In this short talk, I will present a brief overview of Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics. I will start by introducing the history of this branch of archeology, and then discuss cuneiform writing and the scribal culture that it lead to. Next, I will introduce base 60 arithmetic, and discuss its legacy. After that I will discuss how they used large tables of squares to perform multiplications. And I will wrap up with a description of their notion of trigonometry. November 12, 2008.


• Iona College Math Club. "Strange Notions of Distance, Metric Spaces, Spelling Checkers, and Error-Correcting Passwords." This talk introduces the concept of a distance metric, and shares several of the common ones, including the L-2 (Euclidean Distance Formula), L-1 (Manhattan Distance), L-Infinity (Supremum Norm), Hamming Distance, and Minkowski Metric (Special Relativity), though I do not go into detail on the last one. Next, I'll introduce L-4 (used by a Danish furniture designer) and L-p for any p. Finally, I'll explain the Damerau-Levenshtein String-Edit metric, which is used in spell-checkers and genetics research, and explain how it is used in my spelling-error tolerant passwords scheme. November 5, 2008.


• Center for Talented Youth "Unlocking the Puzzle: A Survey of how Polynomial Systems of Equations are used to solve problems in Medical Imaging, Information Security, Aerodynamics, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and Rational Drug Design." Presented a one-hour survey of the applications of polynomials to two sets of gifted 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, who were visiting Fordham University. April 12, 2008.


• Iona College Math Club. "What is Chaos Theory?" Presented a one-hour introduction to Chaos Theory, the modeling of dynamical systems with extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. I taught the concepts of fixed points of functions, attractors and repulsors, periodic and asymptotically periodic orbits, and showed how the first derivative can be calculated at these points to predict behavior. November 8, 2007.


• Fordham University Math Club. "Algebraic Cryptanalysis." Introduced the concept of a field, and presented the connection between GF(2) polynomials and logic. Then showed how these can be used to describe cryptographic systems. Highlighted methods of solving those polynomials to break those systems. October 3, 2007.


• Mathematics Book Club. "Using Matrices to Break Modern Satellite and Telephony Codes." Was asked to present a one-hour talk on my dissertation work, and in particular the aspects related to cryptanalysis. Introduced the concept of a field, the link between logic and GF(2), a brief description of stream ciphers, and an overview of solving systems of polynomials over a finite field via linear algebra. April 25, 2006.


• Historical Miniatures Gaming Society Lecture Series. "What is Game Theory?" Gave a pair of one hour talks on the basics of game theory, how it can be taught at a high school level and the applications to modern economic and military thought. Gettysburg, November 11 \& 12, 2005.


• School of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, "Science \& Technology: Addressing the Need for Diversity" (STAND) "Math Exploration Day." Gave a pair of 45-minute interactive demonstrations of cryptography to groups of visiting 7th grade students, on Caesar Ciphers and Mono-alphabetic Substitution. October 21, 2005.