On February 28, an Orient op-ed written by Associate Professor of Mathematics Jack O’Brien accused two Bowdoin faculty members in the mathematics department of having professional connections with the National Security Agency (NSA), outlined a series of connections that the NSA has with the broader American mathematics community and called for changes in the academic culture of the Bowdoin math department.

The editorial elicited a wide spectrum of reactions from both students and faculty, ranging from admiration and support to surprise, anger and disbelief. Many community members have expressed a mixed opinion on the piece, agreeing with parts of it while feeling more skeptical about others.

O’Brien’s push to increase student involvement in shaping the math department, in particular, has largely received a positive reaction on campus. Several math majors highlighted a desire for more transparency around the potential applications of the math they’re studying and hope that students will play a greater role in future departmental decisions.

“I think increasing the voice that students have in the math department about the curriculum they want is only a positive thing, [even if it’s] not necessarily all going to get implemented. But, having the opportunity for students to share their opinions, I think that aligns strongly with Bowdoin’s values,” Theo Barton ’26 said.

O’Brien’s decision to name Associate Professor of Mathematics and Chair of Mathematics Department Thomas Pietraho and Professor of Mathematics Jennifer Taback in connection with the NSA, however, has been more controversial.

For Senior Lecturer in Physics Karen A. Topp, O’Brien’s decision to include his colleagues’ names came as a shock.

“I understand and appreciate that Jack has ethical concerns about the NSA; I would have had full respect for him if he had written an article about the complicity of mathematicians with the NSA in general, or even if somewhere in such an article he had mentioned the possibility that (unnamed) members of his own department were doing work for the NSA—but to specifically name his senior colleagues—in the second sentence—to me is unconscionable,” Topp wrote in an email to the Orient.

Topp also said that the accusations of complicity with the NSA levied against Pietraho and Taback lacked sufficient evidence.

“I don’t begin to understand the many roles of the NSA, but without some sort of proof as to, first, whether Professors Taback and Pietraho are indeed working for the NSA and if so, on what types of projects, it seems to be ‘circumstantial’ evidence at best that Prof. O’Brien uses to publicly convict them,” Topp wrote.

While not included in O’Brien’s editorial, a copy of Taback’s CV, which was published on her Bowdoin profile page but has been removed, indicates that she intermittently worked as a Research Adjunct at the Center for Communications Research (CCR) in La Jolla, Calif. beginning in 2002 and as recently as 2021.

The CCR, which is part of the umbrella organization Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), states on its website that its primary function is to perform “fundamental research in support of the National Security Agency’s mission,” adding that its work “ranges from broad mathematical investigations reflected in research papers to writing code.” It is unclear whether Taback is still involved with the organization.

Taback’s CV also shows that she has worked for the NSA as a “Reviewer for individual grant proposals” for an unspecified length of time.

The Orient did not locate any concrete evidence confirming Pietraho’s involvement with the CCR, NSA or any of its other subsidiary branches.

In the days and weeks after the publication of his op-ed, O’Brien has shared several emails with the entire department, including faculty, majors and minors and all students currently enrolled in math courses this semester. The first communication, also sent out on February 28, briefly restated several of the points made in the op-ed but primarily called for increased student participation in shaping the future of the department.

“As the individuals most recently coming into the traditions of mathematics, you are also most capable of envisioning our future possibilities with a flexibility and hopefulness of vision.… What steps could we take to include students in the decision making of the department? How can we make a more democratic, more engaged mathematics department?” O’Brien wrote in the email, which also invited students to meet with him in person or submit anonymous feedback through a form.

Fiona Jenkins ’27, who attended a lunch organized by O’Brien, highlighted how meaningful discussing potential possibilities for the department with other math students was.

“That definitely felt powerful, to be there, meeting a lot of new people who I’ve seen around Searles and maybe never talked to and realizing that they have a similar desire to make the study of math focused on ‘What kind of meaningful change can we actually do with this?’ instead of, ‘How do we get the right answer on a problem set and then just move on?’” Jenkins said.

O’Brien mentioned that, while he has the sense that his fellow Bowdoin faculty members hold a variety of opinions about his recent actions, his interactions with the student body have been largely positive and that hearing from students has been an incredibly productive—and emotional—experience for him.

“Some of them were, I would say, tearingly touching…. [Students have told me,] ‘There’s ways in which I just didn’t fit the mold of what was being looked for [as a math student], rather than feeling like the department was trying to meet me where I was at,’” O’Brien said in an interview with the Orient. “One student really said, ‘Oh, this is the first time I can imagine feeling proud of being a mathematician.’ So those were genuinely encouraging.”

In an email sent to the math department on Wednesday, O’Brien apologized for any “confusion and disruption” that took place within the department as a result of his op-ed, directing his message to the department at large as well as to Pietraho and Taback in particular.

As of Thursday night, the mathematics department and the College administration have made no public statement on the matter. Pietraho and Taback also have not shared any public response and did not reply to requests for comment from the Orient.

Ethan Hatcher ’27 mentioned that this silence has largely been reflected in his day-to-day experience as a math major.

“I’ve kind of felt like most faculty have ignored it. One of my professors this semester offered up a space to talk about it during office hours. But apart from that, I haven’t really heard anything from anyone besides Professor O’Brien,” he said.

Professor of Mathematics Adam Levy informed the Orient in an email that the department is currently undergoing “a careful and deliberate process together at the moment” and as such declined to share any further comment on the subject.

Commenting broadly on his hopes for the department moving forward, Caleb Packard ’26 spoke to the importance of studying mathematics in today’s world and the potential of the discipline.

“I think that math is crucial. It underpins everything that’s built around us—the good, the bad, the ugly,” Packard said. “Rather than just having an assessment of the world and then engaging in a math curriculum that does math independent of [that assessment], I think that we can bring our hopes and our vision into that math department, build the tools that we want and then build a better world with those math tools.”