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
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.
Sina Kalantarzadeh 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.
Two 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
Algebraic and Enumerative combinatorics seminar -Alexandre Zotine-A pipe dream framework for orbital varieties of type M² = 0
| Speaker: | Alexandre Zotine |
| Affiliation: | University of Saarland |
| Location: | MC 5479 |
Abstract: An orbital scheme D of type M² = 0 is the closure of a conjugacy class of some set of n × n upper triangular matrices which are nilpotent of order 2. The geometric components of the orbit scheme are called orbital varieties of type M² = 0, and recently their invariants have been connected to statistical mechanics. In the setting of M² = 0, there are combinatorial methods for studying these invariants via the action of the Borel group of upper triangular invertible matrices. In this talk, we introduce a new pipe dream framework for computing and understanding these invariants. This is joint work with Megumi Harada, Illya Kierkosz, Allen Knutson, Emma Naguit, Brett Nasserden, Naveena Rangunathan, and Adam van Tuyl.
There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at beginning graduate level starting at 1:30pm in MC 5417.
Tutte Colloquium -Francisco J. Aragón Artacho-Graph-based splitting algorithms for optimization and feasibility problems
| Speaker: | Francisco J. Aragón Artacho |
| Affiliation: | University of Alicante |
| Location: | MC 5501 |
Abstract: When an optimization problem is structured, it is normally advantageous to use this feature when designing algorithms to solve it. Following the divide-and-conquer paradigm, splitting algorithms iteratively solve simpler problems that are defined by separately using some parts of the original problem. In this talk, we will recall some classical methods and present some recent advances in this subject, paying special attention to splitting methods devised by graphs.