The Department of Mathematics is pleased to congratulate Matt Kahle, Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, and department alumnus Christopher Donnay on receiving a Paul R. Halmos-Lester R. Ford Award from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for their paper, "Asymptotics of Redistricting the $n \times n$ Grid," published in The American Mathematical Monthly.

The Halmos-Ford Award recognizes excellence in mathematical exposition and is among the MAA's most prestigious publication honors.

In their award-winning paper, Kahle and Donnay investigate the mathematics of redistricting. The authors show that when districts are drawn at random on an  grid, the resulting plans are overwhelmingly likely to have boundaries that are disproportionately large relative to their area. Their work provides a mathematical perspective on the geometry and structure of districting plans and contributes to a growing body of research at the intersection of mathematics, data science, and public policy.  Read the full story.

The publication grew out of Donnay's doctoral research at Ohio State under the supervision of Kahle. Donnay earned his PhD in Mathematics from Ohio State in Autumn 2024 and is now the Lab Manager for the Data and Democracy Lab, run by the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group at Chicago University, where he works on projects involving election modeling, redistricting, and civic data science.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Kahle and Dr. Donnay on this outstanding achievement and national recognition of their scholarship.