Welcome to Combinatorics and Optimization

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:

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

News

  1. Feb. 15, 2023Sophie Spirkl receives Sloan Foundation Fellowship
    Picture of Sophie Spirkl

    Sophie Spirkl, an assistant professor of Combinatorics and Optimization, has received a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Spirkl is one of 125 early career researchers in the United States and Canada who received a Fellowship this year.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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Events

  1. Nov. 3, 2023Tutte Colloquium - Walaa Moursi

    Title: The Chambolle-Pock algorithm revisited: splitting operator and its range with applications

    Speaker: Walaa Moursi
    Affiliation: University of Waterloo
    Location: MC 5501

    Abstract: Primal-dual hybrid gradient (PDHG) is a first-order method for saddle-point problems and convex programming introduced by Chambolle and Pock. Recently, Applegate et al. analyzed the behavior of PDHG when applied to an infeasible or unbounded instance of linear programming, and in particular, showed that PDHG is able to diagnose these conditions.

  2. Nov. 6, 2023Algebraic Graph Theory - Jane Breen

    Title: Kemeny’s constant and random walks on graphs

    Speaker: Jane Breen
    Affiliation: Ontario Tech University
    Location: Please contact Sabrina Lato for Zoom link.

    Abstract: Kemeny's constant is an interesting and useful quantifier of how well-connected the states of a Markov chain are. This comes to the forefront when the Markov chain in question is a random walk on a graph, in which case Kemeny's constant is interpreted as a measure of how `well-connected' the graph is. Though it was first introduced in the 1960s, interest in this concept has recently exploded. This talk will provide an introduction to Markov chains, an overview of the history of Kemeny’s constant, discussion of some applications, and a survey of recent results, with an emphasis on those that are extensions or generalizations of simple random walks on graphs, to complement Sooyeong’s talk from two weeks ago.

  3. Nov. 9, 2023Algebraic and Enumerative Combinatorics Seminar - Spencer Daugherty

    Title: Extended Schur Functions and Bases Related by Involutions

    Speaker: Spencer Daugherty
    Affiliation: North Carolina State University
    Location: MC 6029

    There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at the beginning graduate level starting at 1:00 pm.

    Abstract: The extended Schur basis and the shin basis generalize the Schur functions to the dual algebras of the quasisymmetric functions and the noncommutative symmetric functions. We define a creation operator and a Jacobi-Trudi rule for certain shin functions and show that a similar matrix determinant expression does not exist for every shin function.

All upcoming events