Members of the community are invited to attend a public lecture that will explore how cooking can illuminate some basic mathematical principles. Michael Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics, Harvard University, and eminent researcher in materials and modeling, will explain and demonstrate the scientific principles that form the foundation of cooking: from the everyday to haute cuisine.

The lecture will feature Mark Ladner, a 1990 graduate of Johnson & Wales University College of Culinary Arts and is now Executive Chef of the award-winning Del Posto Restaurant in New York City. Professor Brenner and Chef Ladner will demonstrate these mathematical principles through a fun and diverse tour of cooking demonstrations – from making fresh ricotta to blowing up marshmallows.

Please join us for this exciting evening of culinary and scientific experiments.

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About the Speaker

Michael Brenner is the Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics, and Harvard College Professor at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He developed the popular Harvard class, "Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter," with his colleague David Weitz and chef Ferran Adrià. His research uses mathematics to examine a wide variety of problems in science and engineering, ranging from understanding the shapes of bird beaks, whale flippers and fungal spores, to finding the principles for designing materials that can assemble themselves, to answering ordinary questions about daily life, such as why a droplet of fluid splashes when it collides with a solid surface.

Michael Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics, Harvard University

About the Speaker

Mark Ladner is the Executive Chef of Del Posto Restaurant, in New York City, which he opened in 2005. The restaurant received a four-star New York Times rating in 2010, and was more recently honored with one Michelin star, and a Relais & Chateaux distinction. Mark cooks a sensible interpretation of modern, regional, Italian-American cuisine or "Cucina New Yorkese." This fall, he will travel the Northeast Collegiate Corridor, bringing his gluten-free quick service restaurant pop-up PastaFlyer to a college campus near you.

Mark Ladner, Executive Chef, Del Posto Restaurant, New York City

Lecture Video