The C&O department has 36 faculty members and 60 graduate students. We are intensely research oriented and hold a strong international reputation in each of our six major areas:
- Algebraic combinatorics
- Combinatorial optimization
- Continuous optimization
- Cryptography
- Graph theory
- Quantum computing
Read more about the department's research to learn of our contributions to the world of mathematics!
News
Laura Pierson wins Governor General's Gold Medal
The Governor General’s Gold Medal is one of the highest student honours awarded by the University of Waterloo.
Sepehr Hajebi wins Graduate Research Excellence Award, Mathematics Doctoral Prize, and finalist designation for Governor General's Gold Medal
The Mathematics Doctoral Prizes are given annually to recognize the achievement of graduating doctoral students in the Faculty of Mathematics. The Graduate Research Excellence Awards are given to students who authored or co-authored an outstanding research paper.
Three C&O faculty win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Events
Crypto Reading Group - Jack Zhao-Post-Quantum PKE from Unstructured Noisy Linear Algebraic Assumptions: Beyond LWE and Alekhnovich’s LPN
Abstract: Much of post-quantum PKE from unstructured noisy linear algebra relies on LWE or Alekhnovich’s LPN: both assume samples of the form (A, As+e) are computationally indistinguishable from (A, u), but with different noise models. LWE uses “short” errors, while Alekhnovich LPN uses sparse errors. Motivated by uncertainty around future cryptanalytic advances, we ask whether one can still obtain PKE from noisy linear assumptions even if both LWE and Alekhnovich LPN were broken. We talk about two new assumptions: Learning with Two Errors (LW2E), which mixes an LWE-style short error with an LPN-style sparse error, and Learning with Short and Sparse Errors (LWSSE), which uses errors that are simultaneously short and sparse but denser than Alekhnovich LPN. |
Tutte Colloquium -Graeme Smith-Quantum Capacities and Quantum Synergies
| Speaker: | Graeme Smith |
| Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
| Location: | MC 5501 |
Abstract: A central goal of quantum information theory is to determine the capacities of a quantum channel for sending different sorts of information. I’ll highlight the new and fundamentally quantum aspects that arise in quantum information theory compared to the classical theory. These include the central role of entanglement, nonadditivity, and synergies between resources. I will also discuss some challenging open questions that we will have to solve to push the theory forward.
Tutte Colloquium -Kostya Pashkovich-Sequential Linear Contracts on Matroids
| Speaker: | Kostya Pashkovich |
| Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
| Location: | MC 6029 |
Abstract: In this talk, we present sequential contracts under matroid constraints. In the sequential setting, an agent can take actions one by one. After each action, the agent observes the stochastic value of the action and then decides which action to take next, if any. At the end, the agent decides what subset of taken actions to use for the principal's reward; and the principal receives the total value of this subset as a reward. Taking each action induces a certain cost for the agent. Thus, to motivate the agent to take actions the principal is expected to offer an appropriate contract. A contract describes the payment from the principal to the agent as a function of the principal's reward obtained through the agent's actions. In this work, we concentrate on studying linear contracts, i.e. the contracts where the principal transfers a fraction of their total reward to the agent. We assume that the total principal's reward is calculated based on a subset of actions that forms an independent set in a given matroid. We establish a relationship between the problem of finding an optimal linear contract (or computing the corresponding principal's utility) and the so called matroid (un)reliability problem. Generally, the above problems turn out to be equivalent subject to adding parallel copies of elements to the given matroid. (Joint work with Jacob Skitsko and Yun Xing)