Numbers are political: a discussion of mathematics, advocacy, and American politics

Politics, policy and advocacy are seldom seen as traditional career paths for a mathematician in today's world. This is in part because mathematics is primarily focused on abstraction, but also reflects the sometimes insular culture of the community formed around mathematical research. Nevertheless, mathematicians throughout history lived rich political lives, and continue to do so. In this talk, I aim to elaborate on ways for mathematicians to get involved in the political process. I will start by providing a potted history of mathematicians who were politically active, and then I will reflect on my experience as the 2024-2025 American Mathematical Society Congressional Fellow, including a discussion of my own path from number theory to policy. I will talk about the role that mathematicians and numerically literate people can play in policy and advocacy more broadly, for example through economics, data science, and data communication. I will also talk about the places where theoretical math actually does intersect policy, including the work of the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group and the history of voting theory. I will conclude by reflecting on the political activism of mathematicians in the past and present (and future?). This talk will be non-technical, and is aimed at anyone interested in using mathematics in the broader context of their political world.