Welcome to Combinatorics and Optimization

The C&O department has 33 faculty members and 60 graduate students. We are intensely research oriented and hold a strong international reputation in each of our six major areas:

Read more about the department's research to learn of our contributions to the world of mathematics!

News

  1. June 13, 2022Karen Yeats awarded renewed Canada Research Chair
    Karen Yeats

    Karen Yeats, an associate professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, has recently been named among the latest cohort of Canada Research Chairs.

  2. May 30, 2022Simone Hu wins coveted Governor General’s Gold Medal
    Simone Hu

    A recent graduate of the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization has been awarded this year’s Governor General’s Gold Medal at the master’s level.

    The award is among the most prestigious for students, with only one at the master’s level and one at the PhD level for the entire university.

    Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs administers the annual award, with each faculty allowed to nominate a single PhD and a single master’s candidate.

  3. May 26, 2022Walaa Moursi wins Early Researcher Award
    Walaa Moursi

    Walaa Moursi, an assistant professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, was named among this year’s winners of the Early Researcher Award. 

Read all news

Events

  1. July 7, 2022Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar - Emily Gunawan

    Title: Box-ball systems, RSK, and Motzkin paths 

    Speaker: Emily Gunawan
    Affiliation: University of Oklahoma
    Location: MC 5479, please contact Olya Mandelshtam for Zoom link.

    Abstract:  A box-ball system (BBS) is a discrete dynamical system whose dynamics come from the balls jumping according to certain rules. A permutation on n objects gives a BBS state by assigning its one-line notation to n consecutive boxes. After a finite number of steps, a box-ball system will reach a steady state. From any steady state, we can construct a tableau called the soliton decomposition of the box-ball system.

  2. July 8, 2022Combinatorial Optimization Reading Group - Ricardo Fukasawa POSTPONED

    Title: Stochastic Optimization

    Speaker: Ricardo Fukasawa
    Affiliation: University of Waterloo
    Location: MC 6029

    Abstract: While deterministic optimization problems are very useful in practice, often times the assumption that all data is known in advance does not hold true. One possible way to relax this assumption is to assume that the data depends on random variables. This assumption leads to stochastic optimization problems.

  3. July 8, 2022Tutte Colloquium - Ben Moore

    Title: 3-colouring via flows

    Speaker: Ben Moore
    Affiliation: Charles University
    Location: MC 5501 or please contact Melissa Cambridge for Zoom link

    Abstract: I'll show a technique to colour graphs on surfaces using max-flow min-cut.

All upcoming events