Info for Speakers

Seminar organizer: Herbert Hui ch45@cornell.edu

Logistics contact: Emily Tompkins Minturn eft24@cornell.edu

Let Emily know

• your travel plans, tastes in food and housing, and other logistics issues
• your name, title, address and affiliation as you would like it to appear
• the title of your talk,
• a short abstract of your talk accessible to non-specialists to advertise your talk (plain text, Word or .pdf)
• people, places, or things you would like to visit

Consult the tentative TAM seminar schedule for the year for scheduling issues.

Information about the TAM department: www.tam.cornell.edu.

About the seminar:

Audience: Typical attendance is from 10-60 people, mostly TAM graduate students from first year (essentially undergraduates) on and faculty from TAM with various interests. Often a few faculty and students from other departments interested in your topic will come, and sometimes a few undergraduates. Some of the foreign students do not have good English comprehension. Some students come from math backgrounds with little engineering knowledge, some from engineering with little math. There is also great variation in the student's knowledge of computer related and experimental vocabulary and methods. Some students are interested in differential equations, some in dynamics, some in solids, some in fluids and some in other topics. Ideally the seminar should be interesting and informative to all of these people. That is, most of the audience will not have previous interest or expertise in your subject, so you will have to bring the bulk of the audience in slowly.

The usual tips: People usually like:

• a general introduction with the context and motivation of the general subject area and of the specific research
• photos, demonstrations, videos
• not having to remember the meanings of more than 2 or 3 variables
• getting the gist of the talk from the visuals (so they find their way back after day dreaming), or from what you say (so they miss little while their eyes wander)
• a talk complete in about 45 minutes so there is time for questions without going over time

Technology: The room has computer projection, VHS projection, a slide projector, two overhead projectors and a blackboard. Allow time to debug various inevitable but generally solvable electronics problems. The last row of seats, always too-well occupied (even if attendance is low), is about 10 meters from the screen.

Schedule during your visit (subject to appropriate changes):

Tuesday eve : Arrive. Dinner if time.

Wednesday morning: Breakfast, Visit Cornell and individual students and faculty.
12:15: Lunch with students (no faculty), Thurston 204.
4:00: Prepare room technology for seminar.
4:15: Refreshments
4:30: Seminar
6 ish: Dinner out with one or two faculty and students if remaining in Ithaca

Travel information:

• The Ithaca airport is a 10 minute drive from the Cornell Campus.
• The Syracuse airport is a 75 minute drive from the Cornell Campus (there is an airport limousine that goes between the Syracuse airport and any address in Ithaca. $70 round-trip).
• Rochester is about a 90 minute drive from Cornell.
• New York City is about a 4.5 hour drive from Ithaca. There is a bus from New York to Cornell that takes about 5 hours.

If you let Emily know your travel constraints and goals we can buy your tickets for you.

Lodging:

Most visitors will stay at the Holiday Inn or Hilton Hotel in downtown Ithaca. It is a 5 minute bus ride from campus. It takes 30 minutes to walk up (130m rise) to TAM from there and 20 minutes to walk down.

If you are happy to stay at a faculty or student house as a visitor please let Emily Tompkins Minturn know. Such money saving housing is encouraged, but we do not want to push any hosts or visitors who feel uncomfortable with this arrangement.

Ithaca and Cornell Tourist Info:

Movies, seminars, arts, events at Cornell and in Ithaca

Cornell home page (to find other departments and people)

Ithaca information (weather, maps, etc.)