Squaring the Quilting Circle
Beth Malmskog, Colorado College
MAA Invited Address

Thursday, August 7
MAA MathFest 2025

Abstract: A few years ago, I received an email from a friend’s mom with a question about a problem she was having with her quilting circle: is it possible to find a way to pass quilts among five people so that each person works on each quilt, and no person passes to the same person twice? The pursuit of an answer led to row-complete Latin squares. Latin squares are combinatorial objects with a thousand-year history and modern applications in experimental design, error correcting codes, and entertainment, in the form of Sudoku. The journey doesn’t stop there, though; this talk will describe how one simple problem connects quilting, taste testing, combinatorics, group theory, graph theory, number theory, music, Tom and Jerry, and the power/limits of modern computing. We will begin with a quilt and conclude with some music and a number of related open problems.

Biography: Beth Malmskog is an associate professor in the department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Colorado College. She studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming and earned her PhD at Colorado State University. Beth’s research crosses and combines perspectives, including arithmetic geometry, error-correcting codes, Latin squares, graph theory, fair redistricting, and cryptography. She is dedicated to building community and expanding opportunity in and through mathematics, via teaching, research collaboration, and outreach. She and Kathryn Haymaker won the Carl B. Allendorfer award in 2020 for their paper “What (Quilting) Circles Can Be Squared?”. Beth’s research has earned an NSA Young Investigator grant and an NSF Launching Early Academic Pathways (LEAPS) award.