Noted mathematician and magician, Arthur Benjamin, Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, will be our keynote speaker. In 2000, he received the MAA's Haimo Award for Distinguished Teaching. His research interests include combinatorics and number theory, with a
special fondness for Fibonacci numbers. His book with Jennifer Quinn, "Proofs That Really Count: The Art of Combinatorial Proof", on this subject received the MAA's 2006 Beckenbach Book Prize. Professor Benjamin is a national MAA Polya lecturer and co-edit of Math Horizons magazine.

Professor Benjamin is also a magician who performs his mixture of math and magic to audiences all over the world, including the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He has demonstrated and explained his calculating talents in his book "Secrets of Mental Math" and on numerous television and
radio programs, including The Today Show, CNN, and National Public Radio. He has been featured in Scientific American, Omni, Discover, People, Esquire, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Reader's Digest. In 2005, Reader's Digest called him "America's Best Math Whiz."

Abstract: Many trigonometric identities, including the Pythagorean theorem, have combinatorial proofs. Furthermore, some combinatorial problems have trigonometric solutions. All of these problems can be reduced to alternating sums, and are attacked by a technique we call D.I.E. (Description, Involution, Exception). This technique offers new insights to identities involving binomial coefficients, Fibonacci numbers, derangements, zig-zag permutations, and Chebyshev
polynomials.

A centerpiece of the conference is the hour-long student poster session, where student can explain and share their mathematical work with students and faculty from throughout state. Students are encouraged to present posters related to any mathematical talk they have learned at all levels. We seek posters from all areas of mathematics and from every level of the mathematics curriculum (first-year, sophomore, junior, and senior year). Some ideas for poster presentations are:

• Projects from Calculus and Linear Algebra courses
• Real world applications of Mathematics
• Material from Capstone projects
• Results from Undergraduate Research Projects
• History of Mathematics topics
• Any Mathematics Topic!

There will be prizes awarded for the best posters, with prizes at every level of the mathematics curriculum.

We will once again begin the conference with a two and a half hour mathematics competition. The competition will have both an individual and group component. Teams of three individuals are invited to participate in this three-hour morning event. While we expect teams to primarily consist of students from the same school, we encourage teams of students from different schools to compete.

The nature of the problems is modeled upon the Indiana Friendly Math Competition and is much more accessible than the Putnam Exam. The questions on the test will involve material from HS mathematics, calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and the introductory courses that a math major would take. The emphasis of the competition will be on having fun with interesting problems that stress problem solving. Competition rules and past year's problems and solutions are available here.

Awards will be presented to winning teams from both four-year and two-year institutions and the highest scoring student in the individual section. There is a $25 registration fee per team for the competition that can be paid the day of the competition.