Popular Math Educator Grant Sanderson to Deliver 2024 Commencement Address

Grant Sanderson, a math educator whose explanatory videos of complicated math and physics concepts garner millions of viewers, will deliver the keynote address at Harvey Mudd College’s 66th Commencement ceremony Sunday, May 12.

Sanderson is the creator of 3Blue1Brown, a YouTube channel about mathematics with over 5.5 million subscribers. The videos focus on visualizing a wide range of topics, including calculus, linear algebra, physics, deep learning, number theory and more. He also wrote the open-source Python library Manim, which thousands have used to create mathematical visualizations and online lessons.

Sanderson studied math and computer science at Stanford then, in 2015, joined the content team for Khan Academy, helping create a curriculum for multivariable calculus. In 2017, his work on 3Blue1Brown became a full-time pursuit. He has collaborated with the Julia Lab at MIT to create an open course on computational thinking and contributed to numerous other organizations focused on education and popularizing mathematics, including Udacity, Quanta and other YouTube channels.

Last year, Sanderson visited Harvey Mudd’s Department of Mathematics to deliver the Michael E. Moody Lecture “Where Math and Physics Collide.” He explored unexpected connections between kinematics, optics and quantum computing. The talk, like Sanderson’s videos, was a hit with Harvey Mudd students.

“The senior class suggested and then voted on who they wanted to be the commencement speaker, and Grant Sanderson won by a large margin,” senior class presidents Cole Nagata ’24 and Tristan Huang ’24 wrote in a joint email.

“People like him for his above-and-beyond breakdown and visualization of many difficult concepts in math and physics, which has helped many Mudders better understand the topics they are learning in class,” Nagata and Huang wrote. “Many seniors saw his ingenuity on display when he gave a Moody lecture last year, leading to people wanting him to come back and speak at our graduation. We think he highlights Mudd’s values of not only being able to understand complex topics but also being able to communicate and leverage this to help make an impact on others and society.”

The College’s 66th commencement ceremony will be held at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, May 12, on the Harvey S. Mudd Quadrangle.