In light of the Supreme Court's tragic decision on TPS, here is something I wrote last year. www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...

How the Temporary Protected Status program saved my life

Immigration policy is not an abstract discussion happening far away from us, writes Bosnian native Ismar Volić, who came to the U.S. as a teenager. It is the difference between hope and despair, betwe...

wbur.org

Finally I get to talk about topology! www.eventbrite.com/e/lectures-o...

Heya, @wellesley.edu friends, Please join us for a rigorously intellectual and fun evening at the Wellesley Books on June 24th at 7pm. @ismarvolic.bsky.social, @kcarterjackson.bsky.social and I will be in conversation. Reserve your ticket here wellesleybooks.com/event/dender...

Zeno's paradox. Hilbert hotel. Cantor middle thirds. Koch snowflake. Horn of Agnesi. Banach-Tarski paradox. Infinitely many infinities. Size of the universe. Tickets go on sale Sunday. See you there.

Elections Commission of Indonesia, world's third largest democracy, asked me to give a talk suggesting electoral reforms they could implement. They are thinking about reforms from an empirical, data-based, mathematical perspective. Imagine what the world would look like if every country did this.

Explaining today's politics in a rational way might be a stretch, but we can try... Tickets for my May 12 Lectures on Tap go on sale Sunday. Hope to see you there! lecturesontap.com/boston

A recording of my talk at the 2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings. From the war in Bosnia to some of the current research in math and democracy and the urgency of our work. youtu.be/hm_nBJ_xpAQ?...

Ismar Volic "Math goes to Washington: The Mathematics of Democracy, from Theory to Practice"

YouTube video by Joint Mathematics Meetings

youtu.be

I hope to see you at my next Lectures on Tap. This talk is for those of you who yelled "When will I ever use this?!" when you took math in high school. www.eventbrite.com/e/lectures-o...

A nice conversation about why the quantitative approach to democracy reform matters now more than ever. www.buzzsprout.com/1950812/epis...

"Making Democracy Count" by Ismar Volic - Read Beat (...and repeat)

 "Making Democracy Count" by Ismar VolicIsmar Volic  is one math professor who wants to use mathematics to improve our democratic process. His book, Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics I...

buzzsprout.com

What do Konvoj and 80s big hair have to do with math & democracy? You'll have to wait to find out until the video of my talk comes out!

What an inspiring and fun event! The most amazing was the team of some 40 Brown University students who pulled off an incredibly sophisticated and technically demanding production without a hitch.

The paperback is out! Happily nestled between Anne Applebaum and The World Almanac, right where it belongs. You can't bludgeon anyone with it like you could with the hardback, but it can still help you save democracy! press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

I totally could have hit that pose for the cover. If only they'd asked me... Thank you WellesleyWeston Magazine for the nice interview.

A poet and a mathematician from @wellesley.edu in the same poli sci section at Harvard Book Store. @dchiasso.bsky.social

Looking forward to a good conversation. Thank you YPO Democracy Group for organizing. Registration link in comments.

Want to see more clearly in a cloud of political data – while drinking a beer? You can, just come to my Lectures on Tap on Feb 2! Tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/lectures-o...

A little bit intimidated by the venue for my talk at #JMM2026.

Thank you Mathematical Association of America and Allison Henrich for letting me write this article. Our involvement is needed now more than ever. digitaleditions.walsworthprintgroup.com/article/Inst...

My piece on ranked choice voting in New York City made it to the Cognoscenti's best of 2025 list! (And another piece on my immigrant story got a shoutout). www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...

Cognoscenti's best stories of 2025

The 230-odd pieces Cog published this year were personal and political. We worked with new writers and bestselling authors, wrote dozens of newsletters, produced live events, dabbled in video and made...

wbur.org

An article I cowrote with Andy Schultz and David McCune providing some highlights from a research project that analyzed various voting systems. theconversation.com/ranked-choic...

Ranked choice voting outperforms the winner-take-all system used to elect nearly every US politician

Ranked choice voting largely avoids the pitfalls of plurality voting, giving voters the power to express their true candidate preferences rather than being strategic.

theconversation.com

Always a pleasure to visit N1 TV. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_P...

An op-ed written by a group of amazing high school and college students I mentor through the Carnegie Youth Leaders for Civic Preparedness program at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. thefulcrum.us/governance-l...

Too Young to Vote, Not Too Young to Fix Democracy

We are high schoolers. We are college students. We are redrawing the lines. For people our age, gerrymandering is a short lesson in AP Government class, a flashcard temporarily memorized for an upcomi...

thefulcrum.us

I have two heroes: Keith Jarrett and Haruki Murakami. I was lucky to have met one of them. I told him that his writing is very close to a mathematician's heart; like his characters, we constantly slip in an out of the surreal, the otherworldly – that's what doing abstract mathematics requires.

"There's my mathematician!," Clinton said when she saw me. We had a lovely conversation about math, democracy, my book, and Bosnia. Also met and chatted with @repemilyrandall.bsky.social, another amazing Wellesley alumna.

Odličan razgovor, pet puta sam se preznojio pokušavajući da pariram sjajnom Draganu Markovini. podcastoslobodjenje.ba/ismar-volic-...

Ismar Volić: Nikada nisam osjećao pripadnost naciji, religiji ili nekom pasošu - U kontru - Oslobođenje Podcast

U novoj epizodi podcasta U kontru s Draganom Markovinom gostovao je Ismar Volić, redovni profesor matematike i direktor Instituta za matematiku i demokratiju na Wellesley Univerzitetu u Bostonu. U pod...

podcastoslobodjenje.ba

A nice article about the recent conference I coorganized. thewellesleynews.com/21886/news/n...

Nobel laureate Eric Maskin and leading scholars attend Wellesley’s mathematics and democracy conference

From Oct. 15 to Oct. 17, researchers, democracy advocates, and students gathered at Wellesley College for the “Social Choice: Theory and Computation Conference” hosted by Institute for Mathematics and...

thewellesleynews.com

I was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Thank you AMS and the mathematics community. @amermathsoc.bsky.social

Kellie, Chipo, Jen, Stacie... this panel is going to be fire!

Panel discussion on the role of quantitative research in political reform featuring Ariel Procaccia of Harvard University, Alma Steingart of Columbia University, and Rob Richie of Expand Democracy. Moderated by me, with remarks by @wellesley.edu president Paula Johnson. youtu.be/uFq6sjf19NI?...

The Democracy Code panel discussion

YouTube video by The Institute for Mathematics and Democracy

youtu.be

You always wanted to save democracy but wished you could do it over a beer? Now you can, just come to my Lectures on Tap! Tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/lectures-o...