Franklin Kenter: A Biography

I was born to Frank Kenter and Carolyn Jones at Stanford University. My first name is a portmanteau of my parents' names: Frank and Carolyn. I was raised in neighboring West Menlo Park, CA, USA in the San Francisco Bay Area. I attended Las Lomitas Elementary School and La Entrada Middle School.

From an early age, I developed a keen interest in strategy games and, also, mathematics. In my youth, I played games like Magic (created by my my mathematical uncle), Settlers of Catan, and Star Trek Customizable Card Game. During middle school, I stumbled upon an analysis of Monopoly which demonstrated that my interest in games and mathematics is in fact deeply intertwined.


I attended Menlo-Atherton High School for one-and-a-half years before opting out to attend Foothill (Community) College for two-and-a-half years. Upon completing more than enough units to transfer to a four-year college, I moved to La Jolla, CA to attend University of California, San Diego in order to complete my B.A. in mathematics. Despite originally intending to teach high school, I decided to pursue a research career in mathematics. After graduating in 2008 and traveling the country visiting graduate programs, I decided to stay at U.C.S.D. (declining other notable options) for graduate studies. I began Ph.D. work under the supervision of Fan Chung (Graham). My specialties include spectral graph theory, Markov chains and random walks, graph coloring with an emphasis on directed graphs and hypergraphs. I graduated in June 2013.


After graduating, I moved to Houston, TX in order to start my postdoctoral position in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University. I am continuing my research in graph theory.

While advancing in school, I continued my affinity for strategy games. I travelled the country playing in major tournaments. I have won or placed in four world championships over three different games, and I have won numerous regional championships over roughly a half-dozen games. Today, I am using my expertise to help design my own games like other mathematicians before me. A list of my current and upcoming designs can be found here

One of my other life-long hobbies is soccer - both playing and watching. Before rupturing my tendon in summer of 2012, I was a regular player at San Diego Indoor Soccer Center, and my primary position is goalkeeper. With regard to watching, I typically follow Chelsea F.C.
While in San Diego, I volunteered at Urban Life, San Diego's high school program, mentoring high school students from various neighborhoods in San Diego.

Lastly, (if you have not already noticed) my favorite color is orange. My affinity for orange began as a practical method to allow people to pick me out of a crowd of thousands (and yes, it does work). However, I continued collecting orange shirts and my laundry certainly shows it.