The Modesto Area Partners in Science (MAPS) will offer a presentation entitled “Art Inspired by Science and Mathematics” by Carlo H. Séquin, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkeley on Friday, April 11, at 7:30p.m. in Sierra Hall 132 on the Modesto Junior College West Campus.

Séquin will discuss questions such as “What came first – art or science?” and “How can math and computers be used to create new artwork?”

Séquin has had a love for geometry since high school. During the last 40 years of his professional career he has been involved in many design tasks that allowed him to employ and further develop his geometrical skills. From 1970 till 1976 he worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, in the group that created the first solid-state image sensor compatible with American Broadcast TV.

In 1977 Séquin joined the faculty in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at UC Berkeley. He started out by teaching courses on the subject of very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits, and jointly with Dave Patterson and their graduate students they constructed the first Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) on a chip. He then focused on the development of computer aided design (CAD) tools for circuit designers, architects, and for mechanical engineers. With the design and construction of Soda Hall, as well as Sutardja Dai Hall, he had opportunities to apply his geometry skills to large 3D problems.

During the last 20 years, Séquin has also collaborated with several artists, in particular with wood sculptor Brent Collins from Gower, Mo. By making the most of computers and the emerging rapid-prototyping tools, they have created geometrical sculptures in a wide range of scales and materials. A couple of sculptures resulting from this collaboration can be found on the Berkeley campus.

Séquin received his Ph.D. degree in experimental physics from the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and has been elected to the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has received the IEEE Technical Achievement Award for contributions to the development of computer-aided design tools, and the Diane S. McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching.

For more information about the MAPS program visit the website http://maps.events.mjc.edu/, the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Modesto-Area-Partners-in-Science/244618054801 or contact MJC Professor Noah Hughes at 575-6800 or hughesn@mjc.edu.