Programs & Events
Pedestrian Dynamics: Modeling, Validation and Calibration
Aug 21 - 25, 2017
The complex dynamical behavior of large pedestrian crowds has long fascinated researchers from various scientific fields. Academic studies began in earnest in the last century, starting with empirical observations in the early 1950âs and continuing with the development of models in the field of applied physics. In more recent years, applied mathematicians have become increasingly interested in the analytical aspects and computational challenges related to simulation of existing models. With ongoing technical development, more and more data such as pedestrian trajectories and velocities have become available, leading to new questions of calibration of the mathematical models.
Since the inception of the field of study, several scientific communities have been independently working on the challenge of describing and simulating pedestrian dynamics. While mathematicians have mainly focused on the modeling and analytical aspects, physicists have developed experimental setups and methods... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Alethea Barbaro
- Jose Carrillo
- Benedetto Piccoli
- Armin Seyfried
- Marie-Therese Wolfram
Localized Kernel-Based Meshless Methods for Partial Differential Equations
Aug 7 - 11, 2017
This workshop will provide a platform for researchers working on localized kernel-based methods to present and discuss their latest developments, as well as the current theoretical and practical challenges in the field. These methods, such as radial basis function-generated finite differences (RBF-FD) or RBF-generated partition of unity methods (RBF-PUM), promise to develop into general-purpose meshless techniques for the numerical solution of partial differential equations that inherit the ease of implementation of the finite difference method, and yet potentially possess a greater ability than the finite element method to fit any geometry or adapt to singularities or other features of the solution.
The numerical evidence collected in recent years by a rapidly growing community of researchers suggests that these methods combine numerical stability on irregular node layouts, high computational speed, high accuracy, easy local adaptive refinement, and excellent opportunities for... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Oleg Davydov
- Greg Fasshauer
- Natasha Flyer
- Bengt Fornberg
- Elisabeth Larsson
Women in Data Science and Mathematics Research Collaboration Workshop (WiSDM)
Jul 17 - 21, 2017
Research Collaboration Workshop for Women in Data Science and Mathematics (WiSDM). This program will bring together women at all stages of their careers, from graduate students to senior researchers, to collaborate on problems in data science. The scientific focus will be on cutting edge problems in the areas of predictive modeling, multi-scale representation and feature selection, statistical and topological learning, and related areas. Data science is a cross-disciplinary field relying on statistics, computer science and mathematics and driven by problems in many other disciplines. While data science has emerged as a prominent new field enrolls record numbers and attracts research talents from many scientific disciplines, the role of theoretical and applied mathematics has not been highly visible. Mathematics provides many structured representations that can be in the analysis of data arising from such diverse fields as geometric measure theory, classical analysis, computational... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Carlotta Domeniconi
- Ellen Gasparovic
- Giseon Heo
- Kathryn Leonard
- Regina Liu
- Julie Mitchell
- Deanna Needell
- Linda Ness
- Emina Soljanin
- Sibel Tari
- Xu Wang
Probabilistic Scientific Computing: Statistical inference approaches to numerical analysis and algorithm design
Jun 5 - 9, 2017
There is an urgent and unmet need to formally analyze, design, develop and deploy advanced methods and algorithms that can scale in statistical and computational efficiency to the size of modern data sets and the complexity of contemporary mathematical models. Addressing this need will require a holistic approach involving new foundational theory, algorithms, and programming language design.
The emerging research theme of Probabilistic Scientific Computing (PSC) or Probabilistic Numerics lies at the nexus of these overlapping directions. It aims to improve statistical quantification of uncertainty, improve computational efficiency, and build more effective and scalable numerical methods for statistical models by leveraging the natural correspondence between computation and inference.
The primary goal of the workshop is to introduce recent results and new directions in probabilistic scientific computing to the US research communities in statistics and machine learning, in numerical... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Philipp Hennig
- George Karniadakis
- Michael Osborne
- Houman Owhadi
- Paris Perdikaris
Current Developments in Mathematical Fluid Dynamics: Regularity, Instabilities, and Turbulence
Jan 24 - 27, 2017
The purpose of the topical workshop is to gather leading experts, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students, to present exciting new developments in the field of mathematical fluid dynamics. The focus of the meeting will be placed on current research on regularity, instabilities, and the onset of turbulence in fluid flow, from a theoretical and from a computational perspective. Despite their long and fruitful history, to date these topics continue to enchant and inspire mathematicians, physicists, and computational scientists: in part due to their ubiquitous applications in areas from aeronautical engineering to medicine, and in part because the basic mathematical questions are still open. Among these are global in time existence of solutions to the equations describing motion of inviscid and viscous fluids in three spatial dimensions, and the conjectured relation between the phenomenological theories of turbulence and the statistical properties of solutions to the underlying... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Peter Constantin
- Nataša Pavlović
- Vlad Vicol
Predictive Policing
Aug 8 - 12, 2016
This workshop is a one-week program aimed at 20-25 researchers interested in the opportunity to shape the future of research on the mathematics of crime. Small teams will come together to work on real problems with real crime and policing data provided by the Providence Police Department. Five teams will be assembled, each with a technical advisor who will share their expertise and serve as an anchor point and leader for hands-on research that will take place over the course of the week. This will be a truly hands-on experience in which groups will spend time brainstorming mathematical methods and models to approach the problem at hand, analyzing data provided, and creating code to implement ideas as necessary. There will also be research presentations from the technical advisors throughout the week, as well as closing presentations by each team to present their ideas and progress at the end of the workshop. We fully anticipate that lasting collaborations will be formed, and that work... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Andrea Bertozzi
- Jeff Brantingham
- Martin Short
Cycles on Moduli Spaces, Geometric Invariant Theory, and Dynamics
Aug 1 - 5, 2016
A moduli space parameterizes geometric objects with alike structures and encodes in itself the geometry of all possible families of such objects. This workshop will focus on three aspects of moduli spaces: Cycles, Geometric Invariant Theory, and Dynamics. One of our main goals is to synthesize the recent progress on moduli of abelian differentials on algebraic curves motivated by dynamics and in the GIT constructions of related moduli spaces, with the view towards better understanding of geometric cycles on these moduli spaces.
In many cases, computer programming and experiments are important tools to discover new phenomena, both in dynamics and in the study of cycles on moduli spaces. Hence many talks will emphasize computational and experimental aspects of these fields and the workshop will feature a computational problem session whose goal is to disseminate computational techniques and problems to a wider body of researchers.
An integral part of the workshop is a series of three... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Ana-Maria Castravet
- Dawei Chen
- Maksym Fedorchuk
- Anton Zorich
Stochastic numerical algorithms, multiscale modeling and high-dimensional data analytics
Jul 18 - 22, 2016
This workshop is concerned with sampling challenges, modeling and simulation for data-rich applications in high dimensions. It brings together mathematicians, statisticians and computational scientists to explore the interplay between computational applied mathematics and data science. On the agenda will be novel developments in the study of complex phenomena based on data-analytic techniques, such as efficient calculation of ergodic (long term) averages and statistical inference under a wide range of geometric, physical and analytical constraints.
In applied mathematics and computational science, in particular in molecular modeling, image analysis and geosciences, among others, many objects of interest are high-dimensional and stochastic, and a wide variety of techniques have been developed for sampling and approximating the quantities of interest. Similar issues arise in the area of data science and statistical modeling, where learning problems in the presence of high-dimensional... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Mark Girolami
- Susan Holmes
- Benedict Leimkuhler
- Mauro Maggioni
Illustrating Mathematics
Jun 27 - Jul 1, 2016
Research and outreach are normally thought to divide mathematics in two. This separation is, however, completely artificial; it is impossible to “find” a mathematical idea without explaining it. Exploration and exposition are two sides of the same coin. One striking example of this is the epochal work of William Thurston; often his theorems were accompanied by pictures, and computer programs, illustrating the underlying ideas.
The goal of this conference is to bring together mathematicians from a range of fields, and practitioners from the digital arts (animation, 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC routing, virtual reality, computer games, etc). The attendees will share their expertise in mathematics and with the procedural tools used to illustrate mathematics. In addition to talks in the traditional style, we plan to hold several workshops to train attendees about a variety of digital media, in particular 3D printing.
Organizing Committee
- Kelly Delp
- Saul Schleimer
- Henry Segerman
- Laura Taalman
The SaTC Workshop on Privacy and Security at the University of Wisconsin
Jun 15 - 17, 2016
The goal of this workshop is to bring computer science researchers in security/privacy/cryptography together with researchers in mathematics. We will use information security as a term encompassing security, privacy, and cryptography. Information¬-security researchers employ various branches of mathematics such as number theory, probability theory, optimization, and real analysis. Despite this there is currently very little collaboration between information¬-security researchers and mathematicians. The main focus of this workshop will consist of researchers in information-security presenting the mathematical challenges they face in lattice¬-based cryptography, privacy, and security economics, with an eye towards interesting the mathematicians present, drawing on their expertise, and developing collaborations.
The format of the workshop will be designed to foster such collaborations. Information-¬security researchers will give talks about various topics and indicate interesting... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Nigel Boston
- Somesh Jha
Algorithmic Coding Theory
Jun 13 - 17, 2016
In the theory of error correcting codes, a sender (Alice) wants to send a message to a receiver (Bob), over a noisy channel. Strategies for Alice and Bob have been studied since the works of Shannon and Hamming from the late 1940's, from many different communities. Coding theory is a fundamental solution to challenges that arise in communication, storage, cryptography, and others; as the world changes, our challenges in these areas change, and the scenario changes for Alice and Bob. Fueled by these new scenarios, coding theory remains a rapidly advancing area of research.
One trend in many of these new scenarios in coding theory is the need for algorithmic solutions. For many problems in coding theory, it is possible to come up with nearly optimal solutions (information-theoretically speaking) which are likely very hard for Alice and Bob to actually implement. The goal of algorithmic coding theory is to design solutions which are not only combinatorially good, but are also... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Hamed Hassani
- Atri Rudra
- Mary Wootters
Effective and Algorithmic Methods in Hyperbolic Geometry and Free Groups
May 16 - 20, 2016
The recent proof of Thurston's virtual fibering conjecture brought together tools at the forefront of geometric group theory, dynamics, and hyperbolic geometry. We still lack, however, an effective or constructive understanding of three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, and more generally, 3-manifold topology. For example, a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold admits a finite cover which fibers over the circle, but can one construct such a cover from a presentation of the fundamental group? Can one implement an algorithm -- perhaps with the help of preexisting software such as SnapPea -- to obtain such a cover?
While much work remains, both computation and theory have progressed. Fast algorithms have been developed for running computations in the mapping class group and other finitely generated groups, as well as for recognizing certain types 3-manifolds and knot and link complements up to homeomorphism. These have been supplemented by a new wave of constructive theorems which explicitly... (more)
Organizing Committee
- Tarik Aougab
- Mladen Bestvina
- Jeffrey Brock
- Eriko Hironaka
- Johanna Mangahas