Colloquiums

The Centre for Computational Mathematics holds monthly colloquiums where leading researchers highlight the latest advances in the field of Computational Mathematics. Please feel free to browse the list of current and archived colloquiums.

Current Colloquiums

Archived Colloquiums

2022

Fall 2022

November 30: Roger G. Melko, Generative models for quantum state reconstruction
October 19: Hansi Singh, Modeling Hierarchies and Data-Driven Methods in Coupled Climate Dynamics: Understanding Regional Sensitivity, Global Teleconnections, and their Interplay
September 21: Chi-Wang Shu, High order numerical methods for hyperbolic equations

Winter 2022

February 24: Jennifer Balakrishnan, Boston University, Questions about rational points on curves

2021

Winter 2021

January 14: Samuel Wong, University of Waterloo, Inference of Dynamic Systems from Noisy and Sparse Data via Manifold-constrained Gaussian Processes
February 11: Pierre-Nicholas Roy, University of Waterloo, Quantum Molecular Dynamics
April 23: Giang Tran, University of Waterloo, Generalization Bounds for Sparse Random Feature Expansions
April 29: Alex Kontorovich, Rutgers University, Apollonian Packings and Generalizations

Fall 2021

October 1: Scott MacLachlan, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Finite-Element Modeling of Liquid Crystal Equilibria
October 28: Andrew Childs, University of Maryland, Efficient Quantum Algorithm for Dissipative Nonlinear Differential Equations
- This presentation is available to watch as a video recording
November 4: Phebe Vayanos, University of Southern California, Designing Robust, Interpretable, and Fair Social and Public Health Interventions
- This presentation is available to watch as a video recording
November 25: Vincent Neiger, Sorbonne University, Deterministic computation of the characteristic polynomial in the time of matrix multiplication
- This presentation is available to watch as a video recording

2020

Winter 2020

January 13: Ricardo Fukasawa, Solving the vehicle routing problem
February 11: Henry Lam, Efficient uncertainty quantification in simulation analysis
February 27: Bartosz Protas, Searching for singularities in navier-stokes flows using variational optimization methods

Fall 2020

October 1: Eldad Haber, A Computational Mathematics view of deep learning with applications
October 29: Vijay Ganesh, Machine learning and logic solvers: the next frontier
November 19: Tobias Achterberg, Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) solving in practice
December 12: Kimon Fountoulakis, Advanced diffusion methods on large graphs

2019

Winter 2019

February 25: Tim Merlis, High-resolution climate simulations to understand how global warming affects hurricanes
March 21: Leland McInnes, Unsupervised learning

Fall 2019

September 4: Anita Layton, Mathematical models and their applications in diabetes, hypertension and autism
October 28: Lin Wang, Evolutionary computation and evolving reverse engineering-based scientific modeling
November 7: Andrew Sutherland, Sum of three cubes

2018

Winter 2018

April 2: Larry Smith, Computational Mathematics and its billion dollar problems

Fall 2018

October 25: Learning and geometry for stochastic dynamical systems in high dimensions
November 22: Cody Hyndman, Arbitrage-free regularization, geometric learning, and non-Euclidean filtering in finance

2017

Winter 2017

January 20: David Duvenaud, Composing graphical models with neural networks for structured representations and fast inference
February 8: Yaoliang Yu, Fast gradient algorithms for structured sparsity
March 9: Mauro Maggioni, Geometric methods for the approximation of high-dimensional dynamical systems
March 22: David Correa, Material informed computational design in architecture

Spring 2017

June 15: Bruno Salvy, Explicit continued fractions for riccati-type equations
June 28: Jingbo Wang, Efficient decomposition of quantum walk operators

Fall 2017

October 19: David Richter, Droplets and dust in atmospheric turbulence: insight from numerical simulations
November 9: Yang Cao, Hybrid stochastic modeling of the budding yeast cell cycle control mechanism
November 30: Rober Melko, Machine learning the many-body problem
December 8: Shawn Wang, Linear convergence of gradient descent methods in the framework of Bregman distance
December 12: Chee Yap, On soft geometric computation

2016

Winter 2016

January 11: Chen Greif, The (numerical) linear algebra behind solving problems with constraints
January 14: Evelyne Hubert, A moment matrix approach to computing symmetric cubatures
February 25: Elissa Ross, Geometric challenges in digital design
March 3: Christiane Jablonowski, High-order Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) and variable- resolution techniques for atmospheric weather and climate models
March 11: Mark Schmidt, Minimizing finite sums with the stochastic average gradient

Spring 2016

May 11: Dick Peltier, Ocean turbulence and global climate variability in the ice-age
May 16: Yuri Matiyasevich, Computer experiments for approximating Riemann's zeta function by Dirichlet series
June 1: Michael Mossinghoff, FIFA foe fun!

Fall 2016

November 17: Neil J. A. Sloane, What comes next after 2, 4, 6, 3, 9, 12, 8, 10? Confessions of a sequence addict
December 1: Michael Littman, Reinforcement learning from users: new algorithms and frameworks

2015

Winter 2015

January 12: Marius Hofert, Parallel and other simulations in R made easy: an end-to-end study
March 18: Csaba Szepesvari, Exploiting symmetries to construct efficient MCMC algorithms with an application to SLAM
March 26: Anthony Peirce, Modeling multi-scale processes in hydraulic fracture propagation using the Implicit Level Set Algorithm (ILSA)
April 7: Graham Taylor, Deep learning and its challenges for technical computing

Fall 2015

September 10: Joachim von zur gathen, Polynomial equations usually describe nice varieties
October 1: Warren Hare, Proximal thresholds of PLQ functions
October 29: Jacques Carette, Beyond graphic- more mathematics of building video games
November 27: Bruce Pitman, Where are you going to go when the volcano blows?
December 4: Varvara Roubtsova, SiGran: A 3D virtual laboratory for mechanics of granular media

2014

Winter 2014

March 11: Kilian Weinberg, Learning with marginalized corruption
April 3: Ian M. Mitchell, The monotone acceptance ordered upwind method (a casual algorithm for minimum time/ cost optimal control) and some lessons in (Ir) reproducible research in computational math
April 9: Manuel Kauers, Learning with marginalized corruption

Fall 2014

September 22: Éva Tardos, Games, learning and the price of anarchy
October 10: Erich Kaltofen, Cleaning-up data with errors: when symbolic-numeric sparse interpolation meets error-correcting codes
November 17: Petros Drineas, Randomized Algorithms in Numerical Linear Algebra (RandNLA)

2013

Spring 2013

May 31: Joachim von zur Gathen, Generating safe primes and safe moduli
May 31: Shaoshi Chen, On the integrability and summability of bivariate rational functions
July 19: Sung Ha Kang, Variational and RKHS approach for image colorization and segmentation

Fall 2013

September 20: Ruslan Salakhutdinov, Annealing between distributions by averaging moments
October 2: Bernardo Cockburn, The HDG methods for partial differential equations
November 4: Kees Vuik, Fast robust iterative solvers for the Helmholtz equation
December 16: Eric Schost, Building fields

2012

Winter 2012

January 30: Christopher Batty, Animating liquids for visual effects: splashing sheets, viscous coiling and rigid body interaction
March 6: G. Bard Ermentrout, Flicker hallucinations: faraday waves in the brain
April 23: John Burns, Computational methods for design and optimization of PDE systems

Spring 2012

June 22: Bernhard von Stengel, Constructing and computing equilibria for two- player games

Fall 2012

September 17: Vincent Conitzer, Computing game- theoretic solutions for security
October 19: Fei Sha, Domain adaptation for learning in a changing environment
October 29: Tim Roughgarden, Porting the computer science toolbox to game theory and economics
December 12: Fabrice Deluzet, Asymptomatic preserving methods for anisotropic elliptic problems and applications to simulation of plasma under large magnetic fields

2011

Winter 2011

January 17: Chris Eliasmith, How to build a brain: from single neurons to cognition
March 30: Jon Kleinberg, Network formation in the presence of contagious risk
April 11: Michael Shelley, Novel phenomena and models of active fluids

Spring 2011

July 28: Inderjit Dhillon, Fast and memory-efficient low rank approximation of massive graphs

Fall 2011

September 26: Annie Chu, Comparison of ETAS parameter estimates across different global tectonic zones
October 24: Uri Ascher, Adaptive and stochastic algorithms for piecewise constant EIT and DC resistivity problems with many measurements
November 1: Kevin Leyton-Brown, Computational mechanism analysis: towards a "CPLEX" for mechanisms
November 22: Michael Braun, Generalized direct sampling for hierarchical bayesian models
December 16: David Parkes, Mechanism design through monotone branch-and-bound search

2010

Winter 2010

January 25: Paul McNicholas, Recent work in model-based clustering & classification
February 22: Marcus Garvie, A three-level semi-discrete in time finite element approximation of a model for skin patterning
March 15: Warren Hare, The derivative of a set: normal cones and optimization

Spring 2010

May 13: Andrea Lodi, Quadratic {-1,01} optimization
May 17: Andreas Buja, Seeing is believing: statistical visualization for teaching data analysis
July 26: Jon Wilkening, Computation of time-periodic solutions of fluid interface problems
August 5: Marianne Francois, A balanced-force volume tracking algorithm for modeling interfacial flows with mass transfer

Fall 2010

September 20: Mark Braverman, Computability and complexity of julia sets
October 5: Dustin Lang, Automatic recognition and modeling of astronomical images
October 7: Peter Forsyth, Bankers, bonuses and busts
November 1: Vahab Mirrokni, Online stochastic ad serving: theory and practice
November 22: Richard Peng, Solving symmetric diagonally dominant linear systems

2009

Spring 2009

June 4: Aleksandar Jemcov, Algorithm stabilization and acceleration in computational fluid dynamics: exploiting recursive properties of fixed-point algorithms

Fall 2009

September 22: Christian Jacob, The swarming body- exploring the possibilities of algorithmic systems in biology
December 9: Friedrich Eisenbrand, Constrained minkowski sums: a geometric framework for solving interval problems in computational biology efficiency

2007

Winter 2007

January 22: Shirley Mills, Data mining research on networks
January 22: William Stein, SAGE: software for algebra and geometry experimentation
January 25: Gary Brock, The Ontario Centres of Excellence's new program portfolio: an overview/ question and answer session
February 5: Bill Hager, Recent advances in bound constrained optimization
February 19: Tamas Terlaky, Central path & edge path: curvature & diameter
March 5: Nikos Chrisochoides, Real-time non-rigid registration for IGNS: mesh generation
March 19: William Cook, A computational study of the travelling salesman problem

Spring 2007

June 4: Aleksandar Jemcov, Algorithm stabilization and acceleration in computational fluid dynamics: exploiting recursive properties of fixed-point algorithms

2006

Winter 2006

January 17: Emre Mengi, Measures for robust stability and controllability
January 23: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Algorithms in combinatorial design theory
January 30: Jonathan Borwein, Plausible reasoning in the 21st century (or what is high performance mathematics?)
February 27: Yuying Li, A computational optimization approach for managing financial risk in insurance
March 2: Bartosz Protas, On two problems in flow control
March 13: Richard Cleve, Efficient quantum algorithms for simulating sparse hamiltonians
March 16: Ali Ghodsi, Improving embeddings by flexible exploitation of side information
March 27: Fred Hickernell, Solving high dimensional numerical problems
April 3: Fadil Santosa, A mathematical problem arising in design of ophthalmic lenses
April 18: Majib Mohamadian, Simulation of shallow flows over variable topographies using unstructured grids

Spring 2006

May 8: Dan Carr, Maps, hypothesis generations, sliders, visual analytics, and shareware called CCmaps
May 9: Manuel Torrilhon, Stabilized explicit runge-kutta methods for solving hyperbolic-parabolic equations

Fall 2006

October 6: Fabrice Deluzet, Three dimensional simulations of ionospheric plasma instability
October 23: D. Sivakumar, Rank aggregation
November 6: Stephen A. Vavasis, Robust solution of hyperelastic solids with large boundary deformation
November 20: Christiane Lemieux, Quasi-Monte Carlo: an alternative computational tool to Monte Carlo
November 30: Ben Houston, Level set methods, surface representation and scooby-doo

2005

Winter 2005

January 13: Jonathan Taylor, Empirical FDR analysis for functional neuroimaging
January 17: Thomas F. Coleman, Automatic differentiation and structure (or, practical problems require semi-automatic differentiation)
January 24: Kartik Krishnan, A conic interior point dantzig-wolfe decomposition approach for large scale semidefinite programming
January 26: Jean-Charles Faugere, Solving Gröbner Bases of Polynomial Systems and an Application in Cryptography
January 27: Fabrice Rouillier, Real roots of polynomial systems via Gröbner bases with an application to robotics
January 31: Marek Stastna, Three years among the acronyms: a computational mathematics look at climate modelling
February 7: Michael Rubinstein, Elliptic curves and random matrix theory
February 8: Kevin Hare, Three problems in computational number theory
February 14: Henry Wolkowicz, A stable iterative method for linear programming
February 21: Matthias Takouda, Semidefinite programming relaxations for the facility layout design
March 7: Clinton Groth, A parallel Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) computational framework for physically complex flows
March 14: Ali Ghodsi, High-dimensional data analysis by action-respecting embedding
March 21: Jonathan Barzilai, Problems with von Neumann's theory: a new theory of measurement
April 6: Greg Lewis, Numerical computation of bifurcations in a model of differentially heated rotating fluid system
April 11: Ashwin Nayak, Simulating protein folding pathway and the need of distributed computation
April 18: Jeff Chen, Simulating protein folding pathway and the need of distributed computation

Spring 2005

May 4: Kees Oosterlee, Evaluation of European and American options with grid stretching and accurate discretization
May 16: Werner Stuetzle, Unsupervised learning: estimating the cluster tree of a density
August 15: Rob Knight, Modular patterns in random sequences with applications to RNA structure

Fall 2005

September 8: Hongmei Zhu, A new image transform with medical applications
September 9: Robert Bixby, Mixed-integer programming---it works out of the box
October 5: Fue-Sang Lien, Development of a high-fidelity numerical model for hazard prediction in the urban environment
October 17: Stefano Leonardi, Computational tools and experiments for the webgraph
October 21: Dianne P. O'Leary, HOPE a homotopy optimization method for protein structure prediction
October 24: Ron Kimmel, Generalized Nash equilibrium problems and newton methods
October 31: Veronica Piccialli, Generalized Nash equilibrium problems and newton methods
November 14: Chris Myers, Systems biology of cellular regulation and signaling: multiscale and multidisciplinary approaches to network structure and function
November 16: Sara Mattia, Mixed-integer programming to solve power grid blackout problems
November 21: Andrew Odlyzko, Zeros of the riemann zeta function: computations and implications
November 28: Gordan Stuhne, A conservative discretization for hydrodynamics on the sphere: simulating global ocean dynamics on unstructured grids
December 12: Michael Trick, Scheduling major league baseball

2004

Winter 2004

April 16: Martin J. Gander, Domain decomposition methods with convergence rates faster than multigrid

Spring 2004

June 17: John M. Chambers, Modern programming with the S language