Matt Baker (B.S. ’94, mathematics) ‘blazes his own trail’ in mathematics and magic.

For Matt Baker (B.S. ’94, mathematics), there’s something irresistibly inspiring about watching a great magic trick—or better yet, performing one.

“For someone like me, who is very rational and analytical, I love the feeling of having no idea what just happened and then being immersed in a fiction where there’s some reality that violates the rules of logic and physics. It’s very interesting to not know how that’s possible,” Baker explained. “It’s a really unique, great feeling, and I like creating that fiction, that world, for other people.”

Magic is just one of Baker’s passions. The other is mathematics. An internationally recognized mathematics professor and former associate dean at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Baker is also a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and the author of several books and more than 50 published mathematics research papers. And while he built a stellar career as a mathematician, Baker was also making a name for himself as a ‘thinking man’s’ magician, creating and performing original tricks (card tricks are among his favorites) that have won him acclaim around the world, even appearing with Vegas illusionists Penn and Teller on their TV magic show. 

“I was on Penn and Teller: Fool Us, which was really fun,” Baker noted. “I've got a clip on my website of me performing on TV—I did an original trick I'm really proud of that actually involves some interesting mathematics as well.”

Over the years, Baker has found a unique synergy between magic and mathematics.

“I think they complement each other even better than I ever anticipated. I tried to keep them separate for a long time, like this was the secret hobby that I didn't really tell my colleagues about, but in fact, that was misguided, because they work really well together,” Baker reflected. “I think being a magic performer makes me a better math teacher, and being comfortable in front of students makes me a more natural performer.  Many magic tricks use math principles, where the knowledge of the math is directly helpful, and there are also magic tricks that are fun to do in the classroom that help bring across math concepts, so I often do magic tricks for my students.”

Magic or math?

So, which came first, the magic or the math? Baker says he was hooked from the moment he saw his first magic show.

“When I was 4 years old, we had a magician at my birthday party. I have a picture of me watching that show, and you can see from my face that I was totally fascinated,” he explained. “At some point after that, I started playing around with magic. I didn't have a teacher or any professional help, so I'm sure I was very bad, but I was very enthusiastic about it.”

By age 10, Baker was performing magic at other kids’ birthday parties. Then, he discovered math.

“My earliest memory of really being into math was in the third grade. We had a math bee, like a spelling bee, but in math class, and I won,” Baker recalled. “That’s the first time I remember thinking, maybe I'm good at math.” 

Baker tackled advanced math in middle school and high school, eventually deciding to major in mathematics at the University of Maryland. Before he even started his freshman year, he aced his first college exam, and he was off and running.

“I read a book in high school about number theory that really captivated me, and at Maryland, before I actually started as a freshman, I took the final exam for the number theory class—which was an upper-level undergraduate course—and got 100% on it, so I kept going in that direction,” Baker recalled. “I had some really memorable classes through the Honors Program at Maryland, and I took graduate-level algebra and analysis classes that ended up being very helpful for my subsequent career in number theory.”

With every challenge, Baker’s passion for mathematics grew. After graduating from UMD in 1994, Baker earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 before beginning his career in academia as an assistant professor at Harvard University. 

“I always knew I liked teaching, and that was pretty much a constant. I had positive experiences teaching from the start,” Baker explained. “Getting into research was a rockier road, but I kept at it.”

As Baker moved on to teach at the University of Georgia and then Georgia Tech in 2004, his research career took off, exploring connections between number theory, algebraic geometry, complex dynamics and combinatorics.

“What's fun about academia is you get to make up your own research program and do what you want to do, but it took me a while to figure out what that was,” Baker explained. “One thing that's unusual about my career is I've moved between different areas quite a bit, so now, I wouldn't really call myself a number theorist anymore; I’ve basically moved into a blend of algebraic geometry and combinatorics. All those areas have overlaps, and that's what I specialize in, but really, what I've managed to do is create my own bridges between these areas that didn't exist before. So, in a sense, I'm doing Baker Theory.”

Making it magic

A few years after Baker joined Georgia Tech, a mathematics workshop in Paris rekindled his passion for magic.  

“There was a mathematician there, he knew about a club in Paris where the waiters are all magicians, and they do magic as they're serving your food, and he asked me if I wanted to go. That experience immediately filled me with a desire to try to get back into magic again,” Baker recalled. “I discovered the world of magic DVDs, where you can learn on video from a master, and then I got some really good books as well. I decided I was going to give up all my other hobbies—I only had time for one hobby, and I was going to make it magic.”

Baker connected with the Georgia Magic Club, and soon he was brainstorming with professional magicians and developing his own unique tricks, something he’d never been able to do as a kid.

“I started creating my own material, and that satisfied the same kind of urge that my math research does, where I'm kind of blazing my own trail and doing things that are really original and creative,” Baker explained. “Ultimately, that's the most satisfying thing for me.”

A two-time Greater Atlanta Magician of the Year, Baker is working on his second book of original magic tricks, performing regularly and exploring ways to bring his unique mathemagical style to education.

 “A couple of years ago, I went to India with a professional magician who's a good friend, and we wrote a curriculum to teach kids from underserved areas math concepts using magic tricks; it's led me to quite interesting things,” he said. “I’m hoping we can improve the world of magic by bringing more interesting math principles to people's attention and focusing on new opportunities for teaching mathematics using magic.”

In March, Baker will bring his mathematical expertise and his magic skills to UMD’s Brin Mathematics Research Center for a Math & Magic workshop and public magic show. For Baker, it’s a welcome opportunity to return to the place that helped set the stage for his success. 

“I’m thankful for all the opportunities I had to get where I am, and Maryland was definitely a key part of that,” Baker said. “I haven't been back in a long time, so I think it’ll be really fun.”

By Leslie Miller

She grew up in a Terp family and found her way from Los Angeles to College Park in 2018.

Natalie Kinnear joined the Brin Mathematics Research Center (Brin MRC) as a coordinator in 2023, following in the footsteps of family members who attended and worked at the University of Maryland. Kinnear shared her experiences and insights managing and coordinating the activities that take place in the Brin MRC in an interview below, which has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you end up at the University of Maryland?

My mom grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her three brothers, so I always had a connection to Maryland even though I grew up in Los Angeles. Of the four children, three graduated from the University of Maryland. The irony is that the one who didn’t go to UMD has been working in the Physics Department for over 30 years! A few years back, he told me there was a job opening in physics that I would be perfect for. I wasn’t really looking for a new job at the time, but I applied anyway.

Even though I didn’t get that job, it led me to search for other positions at UMD. I came across an Event Coordinator position at the Brin Mathematics Research Center. I loved that it was a brand-new position in a recently established center, which meant there was a lot of potential to shape the future of the Brin MRC. I was also looking for a job that allowed me to focus on event coordinating full-time. I applied for the job, and the rest is history!

What is your favorite thing about working in the Brin MRC?

The people you get to meet. We host many activities at the Brin Center (about 18-22 a year), and with each one, you meet people from all over the world in different areas of mathematics, biology, physics, medicine and more. Every group that comes through has its own distinct culture, and it’s been really rewarding to meet such diverse groups of people and make so many connections. Ultimately, I think that’s what the Brin Center is really about: connection and collaboration. 

Did you always think you’d work in academia?

No, actually! I studied international relations in college with the goal of becoming a diplomat one day. The path to success isn’t always linear and the “dream job” you think you want at 18 might not be the same in your 30s. I may not be the U.S. ambassador to Australia (my favorite country), but I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for anything. Plus, as it turns out, you pretty much use diplomacy skills in any job!

What are your key responsibilities in your role?

My primary role is to oversee and coordinate all activities taking place at the Brin MRC. This includes pre- and post-event planning, organizing travel arrangements, managing event budgets, processing reimbursements, reconciling expenses, and overall promotion of the center. Thankfully, I don’t do it alone; my colleague Anais Bardyn helps run everything too.

What does your day-to-day look like in your job?

Every day looks a little different, which is one thing that keeps my job exciting. Some days may be filled with administrative tasks that keep me glued to my desk, while other days I may be running around (literally) to and from Kirwan Hall and the Computer Science Instructional Center to set up and clean up for multiple events. Most of my days are easy to plan and I know what to expect, but when it comes to event coordinating, sometimes you have to expect the unexpected!

What do you like most about your job?

I love planning the small details for each conference. For me, it’s the little things like making sure that all the spaces in the Brin Center are clean, that the registration table is well-organized, and that the set-up for lunch and especially our receptions look pristine. I get a lot of satisfaction out of setting up for what we call “High Teas” and making sure that everything looks perfect. 

What motivates you to do your job well?

Loving what I do is the ultimate motivator! I’m also surrounded by brilliant minds, and that’s another huge motivating factor. If I do my job well, the mathematicians who come through the Brin Center don’t have to worry about any of the details or logistics of their respective conference, and they can focus on the math.

What is your favorite UMD memory?

I would have to say the people I work with and the friends I’ve made here. It’s more general than one specific memory, since I’ve made different memories with each of them. For example, from 2018 to 2020, I worked in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, where I met Cedric Nwafor, a rising graduate at that time. I got involved in his (then) student club called ROOTS Africa, which is now its own 501(c)(3) organization. I’m still friends with him and am now also friends with his wife. We even took a family vacation together last October to California, and our kids are becoming best friends! How cool is that? 

What do you like to do outside work?

I love to travel and have been to over 20 countries and counting. I’m also currently working toward my PADI certification as an open-water scuba diver. I just finished my second dive in Anse Cochon, Saint Lucia, and plan to take a trip to Catalina, California, toward the end of the summer to complete my certification.

As director of UMD’s applied mathematics & statistics, and scientific computation graduate program, Radu Balan oversees many branches of math—and much more.

Radu Balan doesn’t consider himself a mathematician, which might sound surprising coming from a University of Maryland Professor of Mathematics.
“I’m an engineer at my core,” Balan said. “In fact, my background is engineering first, then physics.”
With a Ph.D. in applied and computational mathematics to boot, Balan’s interdisciplinary background serves him well in a leadership role he assumed in July 2024: director of UMD’s applied mathematics & statistics, and scientific computation (AMSC) graduate program. 

“Our 150-plus affiliated faculty come from the entire campus and all sorts of research areas, which is one of our selling points,” Balan said. “We like to say that AMSC is a structured program with flexibility.”

The flexibility to pursue different academic disciplines has always been important to Balan, who wasn’t exposed to applied mathematics until later in life.

Finding mathematical harmony

Balan grew up in Romania, a country with a strong mathematical tradition, but initially took an interest in other subjects. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in 1992, followed by a bachelor’s in physics from the University of Bucharest in 1994. At some point along the way, he also discovered applied math.

Inspired by the prospect of applying math to fields he already enjoyed, Balan enrolled in Princeton University’s applied and computational mathematics Ph.D. program. His advisor, Ingrid Daubechies, has been dubbed the “godmother of the digital image” for her pioneering work on wavelets that led to image-compression technologies like JPEG 2000, an improvement to the original JPEG image file format.

Daubechies introduced Balan to the field he currently specializes in: harmonic analysis, which breaks functions down to the sum of their parts, such as waves and signals, and has broad applications in medical imaging, audio processing, machine learning and more. Above all else, Daubechies gave Balan an entirely new perspective on mathematics.

“Ingrid shaped not only my career but my vision of applied math,” Balan said. “I learned to have an open mind in math and not live in an ivory tower and say, ‘This is the truth, and therefore this is the only problem I need to work on.’”

After graduating in 1998, Balan was eager to put everything he had learned into practice and accepted a position as a research scientist at Siemens, where he studied signal processing and communications for eight years.

Though Balan enjoyed his time there, his goal was to work in academia. The opportunity arose in 2007 when he accepted a position as an associate professor at UMD. Balan said he was attracted to UMD’s Department of Mathematics for its active research, including advancements in harmonic analysis. 

Balan now serves as co-director of the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications and is an affiliate with the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland. 

Papers and patents

During his career, Balan has published nearly 50 papers in academic journals, including a mix of mathematical theory and applications.

Balan is best known for his work on phase retrieval, which uses algorithms to reconstruct lost information about the timing and position of an electromagnetic wave, sound wave or other signal. While at Siemens, Balan’s 2005 signal reconstruction research led to the invention of a device to help solve what’s known as the “cocktail party problem.”

“At a cocktail party, you're in a room full of people talking more or less simultaneously, so we created a device with microphones to pick up what individual speakers are saying,” Balan explained. “It reduces interference and helps you focus on one speaker at a time.”

Balan has contributed to more than 20 patented inventions—mostly at Siemens, but one while working at UMD in 2017. The latter was a device that used a microphone network to improve the monitoring of industrial equipment.

“You have these sensors—microphones mostly—to monitor each active component for abnormalities or something breaking down,” Balan explained.

Aside from his research, Balan is also one of three editors-in-chief for the Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis journal and serves on the editorial board of the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which oversees several journals.

Balan also monitors the current state of applied math and the job market to ensure AMSC students gain the most valuable skills for applied mathematicians.
“What I enjoy most about my job is discovering new problems,” he said, “but more importantly, new solutions.”

Written by Emily Nunez