On Thursday, October 15, 2026, the Department of Mathematics will welcome Dr. Sommer Gentry as our 2026-27 Clanton Visiting Mathematician speaker. There will be an afternoon colloquium talk and also a general-audience presentation in the evening.
Sommer Gentry, PhD, studied Operations Research at Stanford University and then earned her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. She is Professor of Surgery at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, and Co-Director of the Center for Surgical and Transplant Applied Research. She is a senior investigator with the Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients. She designed matching optimization methods used for kidney exchange, and helped pass a law legalizing kidney exchange in the United States. Her redistricting research was also instrumental in pushing the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to make major policy changes that reduced geographic disparities in transplantation.
Her work has attracted the attention of major media outlets including Time Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Science, the Discovery Channel, and National Public Radio. She was formerly a Professor of Mathematics at the US Naval Academy, and in that role received the MAA’s Henry L. Alder award for distinguished teaching by a beginning mathematics faculty member, was a finalist for the INFORMS Daniel H. Wagner prize for excellence in operations research practice. She also received the US Naval Academy’s 2021 Civilian Faculty Excellence in Research award.
AFTERNOON COLLOQUIUM
MULTI-OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION IN ALLOCATING ORGANS FOR TRANSPLANTATION
Optimization is a mathematical approach that can help design policies to achieve societal goals, but most policies have more than one goal, hence we should frame these as multi-objective optimization problems. Organ allocation is a complex system in which every factor prioritized affects how other factors are prioritized, and this talk will examine several different perspectives on multi-objective optimization as they relate to allocating transplants. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network is eliminating a hierarchical category-based priority system in favor of a weighted combination of multiple objectives, but designing the weights by committee vote might fail to converge on an acceptable system. We can use simulation optimization to balance the survival benefit of transplantation with other goals, for instance prioritizing children and increasing immunologically well-matched transplants. Using simulation optimization, we explore alternative designs to choose an allocation score that minimize waitlist deaths while assuring comparable transplant rates for relevant subgroups (e.g. by age, race, ABO blood type, urban/rural). Our findings are directly applicable to allocation policymaking, using an approach that optimizes outcomes and supports transparency, an ethical cornerstone in transplantation.
4:00 p.m.
Townes Science Center, Patrick Lecture Hall
EVENING PRESENTATION
FASTER, SAFER, HEALTHIER: ADVENTURES IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH
While mathematical advances of all sorts have impacted our world for the better, operations research is a branch of mathematics that is expressly focused on applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. Operations researchers have eased traffic jams by closing selected streets, and gotten packages to you more quickly by planning U.P.S. routes with fewer left turns. Operations researchers have shown which personal decisions are the leading causes of death, and planned maintenance schedules to minimize bridge collapses. The mathematical tools of operations research, like using random numbers to simulate a range of outcomes when some data are unknown, or finding clever algorithms that shortcut the need to try every possible decision in order to find the best one, can be recycled to solve problems everywhere in our world. These days, I am using O.R. to increase the supply of kidneys available for patients who need a transplant and to make organ allocation more equitable to patients across the U.S. In this talk, I will describe some of my O.R. forays into far-flung fields, and tell my favorite stories about O.R.
8:00 p.m.
Trone Student Center, Watkins Room
DONALD H. CLANTON
Donald H. Clanton received his undergraduate education at Mars Hill College and Baylor University and his Ph.D. degree from Auburn University.
Don joined the mathematics department at Furman in 1962 and served as chair from 1976-1985. Throughout his career at Furman, he worked to improve the curriculum and staff of the mathematics department and to strengthen the ties between the university and the high schools in the state. He was an active member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
All who knew Don Clanton remember him as a sincere friend whose advice and encouragement were dependable and valuable. He generously gave of his time, his possessions and himself. Many students and colleagues benefitted from his unfailing cheerfulness, ever-present wit and genuine warmth. All of these factors strongly influenced a broad range of associates and a generation of students.
In order to continue to benefit the Furman community and to honor Don’s memory, his colleagues, friends and family established the Donald H. Clanton Visiting Mathematician program. The purpose of this program is to bring internationally recognized mathematicians to the Furman campus to present lectures and seminars and to visit informally with students and faculty. Contact with these individuals serves to enrich the mathematical experience at Furman.