Mathematics Colloquium – Colorings and Consensus on Graphs
March 4 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
MAT Colloquium
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Hill Auditorium, Barrows Hall
Refreshments at 3:00pm, Talk 3:15-4:05pm
Speaker: Matt Jones, Colby College
Abstract: For hundreds of years, graphs have been used by mathematicians to study the connections between things. I will begin by introducing graphs and graph colorings, and briefly talk through a classical result from the field of graph coloring problems. After that, I will show how graph colorings can also be used to study group behavior by introducing a new kind of graph coloring. These “locally-optimal’’ colorings are relevant when a group tries to reach consensus, and I will describe an algorithm to count them. Finally, I’ll talk about how to think of consensus as a stochastic process and how to apply these ideas to real-world scenarios.
