This workshop aims to prepare the participants for the main program: Special Geometric Structures and Analysis.
There will be introductory lectures to recent results in geometry and analysis; more precisely in Kähler geometry, special holonomy, microlocal analysis and geometric measure theory.

The spatial Schwarzschild space with minimal surface boundary foliated by the inverse mean curvature flow

This workshop will include introductory lectures on each of the four main topics of the program: geometric flows, geometric problems in mathematical relativity, global Riemannian geometry, and minimal submanifolds. The workshop will also have semi-expository lectures on recent advances and breakthroughs involving interactions between the four main topics. This will set the stage and provide important context for the semester-long program itself. 

Geosurface

This three-day workshop will consist of various talks given by prominent women mathematicians on topics of differential geometry and geometric analysis. These will be appropriate for graduate students, postdocs, and researchers in areas related to the two Fall 2024 programs at SLMath.  The workshop will also include activities to promote interaction and connection between participants. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

While their original aim was to explain the strange behavior of certain magnetic alloys, the study of spin glass models has led to a far-reaching and beautiful physical theory whose techniques have been applied to a myriad of problems in theoretical computer science, statistics, optimization and biology. As many of the physical predictions can be formulated as purely mathematical questions, often extremely hard, about large random systems in high dimensions, in recent decades a new area of research has emerged in probability theory around these problems.

Mathematically, a mean-field spin glass model is a Gaussian process (random function) on the discrete hypercube or the sphere in high dimensions. A fundamental challenge in their analysis is, roughly speaking, to understand the size and structure of their super-level sets as the dimension tends to infinity, which are often studied through smooth objects like the free energy and Gibbs measure whose origin is in statistical physics. The aim of the summer school is to introduce students to landmark results on the latter while emphasizing the techniques and ideas that were developed to obtain them, as well as exposing the students to some recent research topics.

This two week summer school, jointly organized by SLMath with OIST, will offer the following two mini-courses:

1. Measure-theoretical analysis, divergence-measure fields, and nonlinear PDEs of divergence form
   This course will present some recent developments in the theory of divergence-measure fields via measure-theoretic analysis and its applications to the analysis of nonlinear PDEs of conservative form – nonlinear conservation laws.
2. Perron’s method and Wiener-type criteria in the potential theory of elliptic and parabolic PDEs
   This course will present some recent developments precisely characterizing the regularity of the point at ∞ for second order elliptic and parabolic PDEs and broadly extending the role of the Wiener test in classical analysis.

Product of projective lines embedded in projective 3-space

This summer graduate school focuses on modern homological techniques in commutative algebra, specifically those involving multigraded and differential graded structures. These topics have a long and rich history, but neither is generally covered in graduate courses. Moreover, recent developments have exhibited exciting interplay between the two subjects. 

The purpose of the school is to introduce the participants to modern themes on these topics, including Koszul duality for toric varieties and differential graded algebra structures on resolutions. The school will consist of two lectures each day and carefully planned problem sessions designed to reinforce the foundational material, with an emphasis on using computational tools such as the symbolic algebra program Macaulay2. 

ALCF Visualization and Data Analytics Team; Adam Burrows and the Princeton Supernova Theory Group, Princeton University

This summer school will give an accessible introduction to the mathematical study of general relativity, a field which in the past has had barriers to entry due to its interdisciplinary nature, and whose study has been concentrated at specific institutions, to a wider audience of students studying at institutions throughout the U.S., Europe and Greece. Another goal of the summer school will be to demonstrate the common underlying mathematical themes in many problems which traditionally have been studied by separate research communities.

In the last few years, there have been extraordinary developments in many aspects of curve theory. Beginning with many examples in low genus, this summer school will introduce the participants to the background behind these developments in the following areas:

1. moduli spaces of stable curves
2. Brill–Noether theory
3. the extrinsic geometry of the curves in projective space

We will also include an introduction to some open problems at the forefront of these active areas.

This summer school will familiarize students with the basic problems of the mathematical theory of Euclidean quantum fields. The lectures will introduce some of its prominent models and analyze them via the so called “stochastic quantization” methods, involving recently developed stochastic and PDE techniques. This is an area which is highly interdisciplinary combining ideas ranging from the theory of partial differential equations, to stochastic analysis, to mathematical physics. Our goal is to bring together students who are perhaps familiar with some but not all of these subjects and teach them how to integrate these different tools to solve cutting-edge problems of Euclidean quantum field theory.

This summer school provides the mathematical background to recognize Koszul duality in representation theory. The school is especially oriented toward applications in the local Langlands program, with an emphasis on real groups. As Koszul duality patterns have been initially observed in the context of Hecke algebras, our school will also introduce the students to Hecke algebras and their categorifications.

The image of a large sphere isometrically embedded into a small space through a C^1 embedding. (Attributions: E. Bartzos, V. Borrelli, R. Denis, F. Lazarus, D. Rohmer, B. Thibert)

This two week summer school, jointly organized by SLMath with RIKEN, will introduce graduate students to the theory of h-principles.  After building up the theory from basic smooth topology, we will focus on more recent developments of the theory, particularly applications to symplectic and contact geometry, fluid dynamics, and foliation theory.

h-principles in smooth topology (Emmy Murphy)
Riemannian geometry and applications to fluid dynamics (Dominik Inauen)
Contact and symplectic flexibility (Emmy Murphy)
Foliation theory and diffeomorphism groups (Takashi Tsuboi)

This two week summer school, jointly organized by SLMath with IBM Zurich, will introduce students to the mathematics and algorithms used in the design and analysis of quantum-safe cryptosystems. Each week will be dedicated to two of the four families of quantum-safe schemes.

This summer school will focus on the introductory notions related to the passage of Newtonian and quantum many-body dynamics to kinetic collisional models of Boltzmann flow models arising in statistical sciences in connection to model reductions when continuum macro dynamics arises; and their numerical schemes associated to transport of kinetic processes in classical and data driven mean field dynamics incorporating recent tools from computational kinetics and data science tools. There will be two sets of lectures: “From Newton to Boltzmann to Fluid dynamics”, and “Kinetic collisional theory in mean field regimes: analysis, discrete approximations, and applications”. Each lecture series will be accompanied by a collaboration session, led by the lecturer and teaching assistants. The purpose of the collaboration sessions is to encourage and strengthen higher-level thinking of the materials taught in the lectures and to direct further reading for interested students. Interactive learning activities will be conducted. For example, students will be given problem sets associated with the lectures and will work in small groups to discuss concepts and/or find solutions to assigned problems. The students will also be encouraged to give oral or poster presentations on their solutions or other materials relevant to the course.

a Calabi-Yau manifold

This summer school will serve as an introduction to the SLMath program "Special geometric structures and analysis". There will be two mini-courses: one in Geometric Measure theory and the other in Microlocal Analysis. The aim is to give the basic notions of two subjects also treated during the program.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2024, MSRI-UP will focus on Mathematical Endocrinology. The research program will be led by Dr. Erica J. Graham, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College.

This school will present various developments in Riemannian and Kähler geometry around the notion of curvature seen as a tool to describe and understand the geometry of the objects. The school will give graduate students the opportunity to learn key ideas and techniques of the field, with an emphasis on solidifying foundations in view of potential future research. The first week will be centered around the question of the existence of Kähler metrics with special curvature properties and the famous Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture. The second week will focus on geometric flows in Riemannian and complex geometry. 

"May 12 Initiative" Annual Workshop

The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) celebrates the "May 12 Initiative" with a panel discussion and social event open to all on the topic "Being a Woman in Mathematics". This is a hybrid event taking place on Zoom and in person at SLMath. This event is free and open to worldwide participation.

If you plan to participate online, please connect using this LINK.  

This workshop will have a view to the future of a broad spectrum of topics including

• structure and classification of finite dimensional Lie algebras and superalgebras in characteristic p
• structure of infinite dimensional Lie algebras and their representations
• deformation theory of algebras, double constructions and elemental Lie algebras
• diagram algebras and combinatorial representation theory
• algebraic combinatorics of groups of Lie type:characters, Schur-Weyl duality, Bratteli diagrams, and McKay correspondences
• quantum groups and crystal bases, particularly for superalgebras and affine algebras
• examples of fusion categories arising from representations of Drinfeld doubles and other algebras
• cohomology for finite tensor categories with applications to its underlying geometry

This meeting will feature principal contributors in these areas in a celebration of the work of Georgia Benkart. With the same focus and tenacity that Georgia always had, we will strive to provide a conference full of beautiful mathematics, incredible inspiration, and the warmth of Georgia’s welcoming personality to our field and our community.

Many long-standing conjectures in commutative algebra have been solved in recent years, often through the introduction of new methods that are quickly becoming central to the field.  This workshop will bring together a wide array of researchers in commutative algebra and related fields, with the goal of forging new connections among topics, and with a particular emphasis on transformative new methods.

Optical illusion staircase

This workshop will give an overview of recent developments in non-commutative algebraic geometry, including NC projective AG, NC resolutions, semiorthogonal decompositions, enhancements of derived categories, and connections to homological mirror symmetry, to enumerative AG, to moduli spaces and to birational geometry. It will in particular focus on speakers who have built new bridges between these topics.

The undergraduate mathematics education system remains a huge barrier to college completion and to equity in higher education. The problem in entry level mathematics courses is not a lack of innovation. Numerous projects and institutions have created, piloted, and occasionally replicated effective reform efforts that overcame particular challenges, like the need to improve pedagogical practices or attend to gender equity. The biggest barrier to systemic reform – implementing many of these research-backed innovations at scale – is a structural one, particularly at large research-focused institutions. This workshop will bring together a group of stakeholders to explore a new avenue for change, the rise of teaching-focused faculty at research-intensive institutions who increasingly influence introductory coursework. By creating a network that connects these faculty across institutions, change at scale across 50, 100, or even more institutions becomes possible – on issues ranging from pedagogy to equity to curricular innovation. Creating such structures would also allow for bringing future innovations to scale much more quickly than is currently possible.

The affine line arrangement of type C with different lattices and toric arrangements arising from it.

This workshop brings together experts from different areas to discuss and foster collaboration on several topics of current interest related to Artin groups such as the K(π, 1) conjecture, hyperplane arrangements and abelian arrangements, combinatorial structures associated with dual Coxeter systems, and complexes of nonpositive curvature.

A paper fortune teller illustrating the Atiyah flop.

This introductory workshop will consist of a combination of minicourses addressing core topics in noncommutative algebraic geometry and research lectures describing recent developments in the field.  The workshop will focus on subjects connected to algebraic geometry, category theory, and mirror symmetry such as categorical and noncommutative resolutions, deformation theory, derived categories in algebraic geometry, derived algebraic geometry, infinity categories, and enumerative geometry.

This two-day workshop will feature the work of mathematicians in noncommutative geometry who identify as women or another marginalized gender. The talks will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program. This meeting aims to support young researchers.

The workshop will focus on recent developments in noncommutative algebraic geometry including Derived Algebraic Geometry, Categorical and Noncommutative Resolutions, Deformation Theory, and Enumerative Geometry.

The format will include plenary talks, a poster session, panel discussions, as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections in noncommutative geometry. The workshop is open to all mathematicians, and members of historically excluded groups and identities are especially encouraged to attend.

Fractal behavior of local cohomology. For details, see arXiv:2210.03656 by Gao and Raicu

The Introductory Workshop will feature lecture series devoted to some recent breakthrough results in commutative algebra, and to new developments in core areas of the field.  It will also highlight links to other areas such as arithmetic geometry, representation theory, noncommutative geometry, and singularity theory.

This two-day workshop will feature the work of mathematicians in commutative algebra who identify as women or another marginalized gender. The talks will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program. This meeting aims to support young researchers. The format will include plenary talks, poster sessions, panel discussions, as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections.  The workshop is open to all mathematicians, and members of historically excluded groups and identities are especially encouraged to attend.

Blood flow and structure displacement in an Aortic Abdominal Aneurysm

This workshop will focus on the coupled dynamical interaction between fluids and elastic/poroelastic structures, with an emphasis on the most recent and cutting-edge mathematical advances in deterministic and stochastic fluid-structure interaction. The goal of this workshop is to bring together a diverse group of mathematicians in the fields of analysis, modeling, numerics, stochastics, and real-world applications in order to showcase an interdisciplinary approach to the study of coupled fluid-structure systems. A major component of this workshop will be to encourage active participation of early career researchers, such as graduate students and postdocs, and foster synergistic collaboration with established leaders in the field.

The workshop is aimed at exploring core subjects in the field of market and mechanism design, such as the design of non-convex auction markets, the design of matching markets with preferences, algorithmic mechanism design, and learning in games. These topics are interrelated and deeply rooted in mathematics and computer science. Each day of the 4-day workshop is devoted to one of these topics with talks by leading scholars in the field and panel discussions on major open problems.

This workshop will look at the idea of fairness and neutrality in algorithms and decision-making. How it relates to the idea of randomization and how randomization can be employed in the pursuit of neutrality and fairness. The goal is both to bring together state-of-the-art research and explore the implications and limitations of the deployment in the real world.

Drawing by Tina Zhang.

This workshop is about the recent MIP*=RE result from quantum computational complexity, and the resulting resolution of the Connes embedding problem from the theory of von Neumann algebras. MIP*=RE connects the disparate areas of computational complexity theory, quantum information, operator algebras, and approximate representation theory. The aim of this workshop is to bridge this divide, by giving an in-depth exposition of the techniques used in the proof of MIP*=RE, and highlighting perspectives on the MIP*=RE result from operator algebras and approximate representation theory. In particular, this workshop will highlight connections with group stability, something that has not been covered in previous workshops. In addition to increasing understanding of the MIP*=RE proof, we hope that this will open up further applications of the ideas behind MIP*=RE in operator algebras.

This workshop is multifaceted. In addition to familiarizing graduate students and other junior participants to the topics of the program, the workshop will also reinforce common ground and language among computer scientists and economists and provide an on-ramp introduction for interested mathematicians.

The Connections Workshop will consist of invited talks from leading researchers at all career stages in the field of market design.  Particular attention will be paid to real-world applications.  There will also be an AMA focused on career paths with highly visible individuals in the field, and a social event intended to help workshop attendees network with each other.

Image generated by an AI process.

In this workshop, we will bring together speakers who are engaged in the active areas of scholarship around algorithmic fairness, the disparate impacts of facially impartial systems, and the ways that algorithms can be enmeshed in governance and decisionmaking—for better and worse.  The speakers will introduce themes that will be picked up throughout the semester program on "Algorithms, Fairness, and Equity."

The Connections Workshop will welcome participants of all genders and identities, with the scope of fostering a sense of community, amplifying voices of those who identify as women, and providing avenues to allies to be helpful. The workshop particularly aims to increase visibility among junior women in fields adjacent to the topics of the general program, including but not limited to game-theoretic fairness, mechanism design, partition, networks, redistricting, and fairness in machine learning. This two-day workshop will include keynote speakers, lightning talks from participants, panel discussions on career advancement, breakout sessions by research areas, opportunities for networking, and other mentoring activities.

Several executions of a 3-dimensional sumcheck protocol with a random order of directions (thanks to Dev Ojha for creating the diagram)

Proofs are at the foundations of mathematics. Viewed through the lens of theoretical computer science, verifying the correctness of a mathematical proof is a fundamental computational task. Indeed, the P versus NP problem, which deals precisely with the complexity of proof verification, is one of the most important open problems in all of mathematics.

The complexity-theoretic study of proof verification has led to exciting reenvisionings of mathematical proofs. For example, probabilistically checkable proofs (PCPs) admit local-to-global structure that allows verifying a proof by reading only a minuscule portion of it. As another example, interactive proofs allow for verification via a conversation between a prover and a verifier, instead of the traditional static sequence of logical statements. The study of such proof systems has drawn upon deep mathematical tools to derive numerous applications to the theory of computation and beyond.

In recent years, such probabilistic proofs received much attention due to a new motivation, delegation of computation, which is the emphasis of this summer school. This paradigm admits ultra-fast protocols that allow one party to check the correctness of the computation performed by another, untrusted, party. These protocols have even been realized within recently-deployed technology, for example, as part of cryptographic constructions known as succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs).

This summer school will provide an introduction to the field of probabilistic proofs and the beautiful mathematics behind it, as well as prepare students for conducting cutting-edge research in this area.

This summer school will introduce graduate students to sketching-based approaches to computational linear and multi-linear algebra. Sketching here refers to a set of techniques for compressing a matrix, to one with fewer rows, or columns, or entries, usually via various kinds of random linear maps. We will discuss matrix computations, tensor algebras, and such sketching techniques, together with their applications and analysis.

The goal of the summer school is for the students to first become familiar with the concept of concentration of measure in different settings (Euclidean, Riemannian and discrete), and the main open problems surrounding it. The students will later become familiar with the proof techniques that involve the different types of localization and obtain expertise on the ways to apply the localization techniques. After attending the graduate school, the students are expected to have the necessary background that would give them a chance to both conduct research around open problems in concentration of measure, find new applications to existing localization techniques and perhaps also develop new localization techniques.

The overarching goal of this summer school is to expose the students both to modern forms of unsupervised learning — in the form of geometrical and topological data analysis — and to supervised learning — in the form of (deep) neural networks applied to regression/classification problems. The organizers have opted for a lighter exposure to a broader range of topics. Using the metaphor of a meal, we are offering 2 + 2 samplers — geometry and topology for data analysis + theoretical and practical deep learning — rather than 1 + 1 main dishes. The main goal, thus, is to inspire the students to learn more about one or several of the topics covered in the school.

The expected learning outcomes for students attending the school are the following:

1. An introduction to how concepts and tools from geometry and topology can be leveraged to perform data analysis in situations where the data are not labeled.

2. An introduction to recent and ongoing theoretical and methodological/practical developments in the use of neural networks for data analysis (deep learning).

Schur quartic x 4−xy3 = z 4−zu3 and several of the 64 lines that it contains

Derived algebraic geometry is an ‘update’ of algebraic geometry using ‘derived’ (roughly speaking, homological) techniques. This requires recasting the very foundations of the field: rings have to be replaced by differential graded algebras (or other forms of derived rings), categories by higher categories, and so on. The result is a powerful set of new tools, useful both within algebraic geometry and in related areas. The school serves as an introduction to these techniques, focusing on their applications.

The school is built around two related courses on geometric (‘derived spaces’) and categorical (‘derived categories’) aspects of the theory. Our goal is to explain the key ideas and concepts, while trying to keep technicalities to a minimum.

Soap bubble: equilibrium solution of the rescaled mean curvature flow and constant curvature surface.

This graduate summer school will introduce students to two important and inter-related fields of differential geometry: geometric flows and minimal surfaces.

Geometric flows have had far reaching influences on numerous branches of mathematics and other scientific disciplines. An outstanding example is the completion of Hamilton’s Ricci flow program by Perelman, leading to the resolution of the Poincare conjecture and Thurston’s geometrization conjecture for 3-manifolds. In this part of the summer school, students will be guided through basic topics and ideas in the study of geometric flows.

Since Penrose used variations of volume to formulate and study black holes in general relativity (in his Nobel prize-winning work), the intriguing connections between minimal surfaces and general relativity have been a strong driving force for the modern developments of both research areas. This part of the summer school will introduce students to the basic theory of minimal submanifolds and its applications in Riemannian geometry and general relativity.

The curriculum of this program will be accessible and will have a broad appeal to graduate students from a variety of mathematical areas, introducing some of the latest developments in each area and the remaining open problems therein, while simultaneously emphasizing their synergy.

This two week school will focus on spectral theory of periodic, almost-periodic, and random operators.  The main aim of this school is to teach the students who work in one of these areas, methods used in parallel problems, explain the similarities between all these areas and show them the `big picture'.

This school is associated with an upcoming research program at MSRI under the same title. The goal of the school is to equip students unfamiliar with these topics with the mathematical and theoretical computer science toolbox that forms the foundation of market and mechanism design.

A basic enzymatic mechanism

The aim of the course is to learn how tools from algebraic geometry (in particular, from computational and real algebraic geometry) can be used to analyze standard models in molecular biology. Particularly, these models are key ingredients in the development of Systems and Synthetic biology, two active research areas focusing on understanding, modifying, and implementing the design principles of living systems.

We will focus on the mathematical aspects of the methods, and exemplify and apply the theory to real networks, thereby introducing the participants to relevant problems and mechanisms in molecular biology. As a counterpart, however, the participants will also see how this field has in the past challenged current methods, mainly in the realm of real algebraic geometry, and has given rise to new general and purely theoretical results on polynomial equations. We will end our lectures with an overview of open questions in both fields.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2023, MSRI-UP will focus on Topological Data Analysis. The research program will be led by Dr. Jose Perea, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University.

Some basic concepts in mathlib and the dependencies between them

Computational proof assistants now make it possible to develop global, digital mathematical libraries with theorems that are fully checked by computer. This summer school will introduce students to the new technology and the ideas behind it, and will encourage them to think about the goals and benefits of formalized mathematics. Students will learn to use the Lean interactive proof assistant, and by the end of the session they will be in a position to formalize mathematics on their own, join the Lean community, and contribute to its mathematical library.

Commutative Algebra has seen an extraordinary development in the last few years. Long standing conjectures have been proven and new connections to different areas of mathematics have been built.This summer graduate school will consist of three mini-courses (5 lectures each) on fundamental topics in commutative algebra that are not covered in the standard courses. Each course will be accompanied by problem sessions focused on research. Five general colloquium-style lectures will be given by invited scholars who will also attend the school and help with afternoon research activities. 

2023 Pilot Program: The goal of MAY-UP is to provide students with a glimpse into Linear Algebra; and the ways in which this topic may arise both theoretically and computationally in their future studies. Material will include an introduction to matrices as well as basic matrix operations. We will also provide students with introductory programming skills in Python, including development environment setup and matrix manipulations via code.

The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly MSRI, celebrates May 12 with a panel discussion and social event open to all on the topic "Pathways in Mathematics". This is a hybrid event taking place on Zoom and in person at SLMath and satellite institutions.

A genus 2 curve over the reals and various p-adics. Image created by Prof. Jennifer Balakrishnan .

In recent years, a number of techniques have led to outstanding progress on Lang-Vojta conjectures, such as the Subspace Theorem, p-adic approaches to finiteness, and modular methods. Similarly, spectacular progress has been achieved on unlikely intersection conjectures thanks to new methods and tools, such as height formulas for special points, connections to model theory, refined counting results, and new theorems of Ax-Shanuel type (bi-algebraic geometry). The goal of this workshop is to create the opportunity for these two groups to interact, to share their techniques, to update on the most recent progress, and to attack the outstanding open questions in the field.

In 2022-23, SLMath (formerly MSRI) celebrates 40 years of serving the mathematical sciences community through our topic-focused programs and workshops, and the general public via our national and global outreach initiatives. Director Tatiana Toro and Deputy Director Hélène Barcelo invite the community to join us for a symposium to reflect upon these four decades of extraordinary activity.  This celebration will feature special guest speakers, panel discussions and an evening reception.

The workshop Critical Issues in Mathematics Education: Mentoring for Equity aims to reach a broad audience of faculty and students in postsecondary mathematical sciences. Participants will learn about the evidence base for effective mentoring, with a focus on culturally responsive mentoring that supports all students and faculty along their mathematical paths. The workshop includes a combination of discussion of research evidence, review and adaptation of practical tools, and explicit training in effective mentoring, including how to bring these tools back to participants’ home institutions. The workshop intertwines objectives of increasing participants’ knowledge of the scholarship on effective mentoring, and engages participants in interactive activities to develop tangible skills as mentors and as mentor-trainers. Participants should come with a growth mindset, prepared to reflect on their experiences as mentors and mentees, and actively contribute to activities that build skills for implementing best mentoring practices.  This workshop will cultivate local and national mentoring communities that bring effective tools and strategies to mentoring, so that mentees can persist and thrive in research, teaching, education, and throughout their education and careers. One focus will be on addressing the individual mentoring needs of all faculty and students, including those who have been historically-marginalized in mathematics education and careers.

Some Gaussian periods for the 29,070-th cyclotomic extension. Image credit: E. Eischen, based on earlier work by W. Duke, S. R. Garcia, T. Hyde, and R. Lutz

The topical workshop will be dedicated to Shouwu Zhang, to mark the occasion of his 60th birthday, and to honour his numerous beautiful contributions to the theory of Shimura varieties and special values of L-functions. It will highlight cutting edge work on topics such as the construction of Euler systems; relations between special cycles on Shimura varieties and L-functions, such as generalized Gross-Zagier formulas and the Tate conjecture; the construction of Galois representations in cohomology; and related aspects of the theory of automorphic forms.

Rational points on a general type surface. Image by Hector Pasten.

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

This workshop will feature expository lectures about  current developments in  Diophantine geometry. This includes  the uniform Mordell—Lang for rational points on curves,  the  Andre—Oort conjecture for special points on Shimura varieties, and effective results via Chabauty method, and related topics in  Arakelov theory, unlikely intersections, arithmetic statistics, arithmetic dynamics, and p-adic Hodge theory.

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

This workshop will highlight talks on various aspects of Diophantine Geometry. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers at different career stages and of various backgrounds in order to establish new collaborations and mentoring relationships. Although we will showcase the research of mathematicians who identify as women or gender minorities, this workshop is open to all.

Image credit: Vincent J. Matsko, 6-adic Koch-like fractal. For details, see http://www.vincematsko.com/Art/ICERM.html

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

The Introductory Workshop aims to provide a coherent overview of current research in algebraic cycles, L-values, Euler systems, and the many connections between them. This includes the study of special cycles on Shimura varieties and moduli spaces of shtukas, integral representations of L-values and the construction of p-adic L-functions, and the construction of Euler systems from special elements in Chow groups or higher Chow groups of Shimura varieties. Workshop lectures will be organized into short lecture series, so as to allow each series to begin with expository lectures on foundational results before moving on to current research. This workshop is held in honor of mathematician Bernadette Perrin-Riou.

David Lowry-Duda. Modular form of weight 32 and level 3. For details, see http://davidlowryduda.com/trace-form/

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

The Connections Workshop features presentations by both leading researchers and promising newcomers whose research has contact with the interrelated topics of algebraic cycles, L-values, and Euler systems. The goal is to present a variety of diverse results, so as to forge new connections, foster collaborative projects, and establish mentoring relationships. While emphasis will be placed on the work of women mathematicians, the workshop is open to all researchers. This workshop is held in honor of mathematician Bernadette Perrin-Riou.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation only available to members of the semester-long program and invited guests.  Online participation will be open to all who register.  Due to limited capacity, mathematicians who have not received an official invitation will not be permitted to enter the institute.

The workshop will focus on the interaction between homotopy theory and symplectic topology and low dimensional topology that is mediated by Floer theory. Among the topics covered are foundational questions, applications to concrete geometric questions, and the relationship with finite dimensional approaches.

ALL FUNDING FOR THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN ALLOCATED

As part of the Mathematical Sciences Collaborative Diversity Initiatives, the six NSF-funded U.S. mathematics institutes will host their annual SACNAS pre-conference event, the 2022 Modern Math Workshop (MMW). The Modern Math Workshop encourages undergraduates from underrepresented groups to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences, and builds research and networking opportunities among undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs.

Image drawn by Dr. Lotte Hollands

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation only available to members of the semester-long program and invited guests.  Online participation will be open to all who register.  Due to limited capacity, mathematicians who have not received an official invitation will not be permitted to enter the institute.

This workshop will bring together researchers working on new four-dimensional gauge theories from the perspectives of differential geometry, algebraic geometry, and physics. Over the last 25 years, physicists have made tantalizing conjectures relating the Vafa–Witten equation to modular forms and the Kapustin–Witten and Haydys–Witten equations to knot theory and the geometric Langlands programme. The analytical challenges in the way of establishing these predictions are now being pursued vigorously.  More recently, algebraic geometers have had enormous success in confirming and refining Vafa–Witten's predictions for projective surfaces. The workshop will serve as a platform for reporting on recent progress and exchanging ideas in all of these areas, with the aim of strengthening existing and fostering new interactions.

A Fleur Homotopy.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program and speakers. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

Over the last decade, there has been a wealth of new applications of homotopy-theoretic techniques to Floer homology in low-dimensional topology and symplectic geometry, including Manolescu’s disproof of the high-dimensional Triangulation Conjecture and Abouzaid-Blumberg’s proof of the Arnol’d Conjecture in finite characteristic. Conversely, results in Floer theory and categorification have opened new directions of research in homotopy theory, from string topology to S-Lie algebras. The goal of this workshop is to introduce researchers in Floer theory to modern techniques and questions in homotopy theory and, conversely, introduce researchers in homotopy theory to ideas underlying Floer theory and its applications.

An illustration of a generic Heegaard quadruple by K. Hendricks, J. Hom, M. Stoffregen, and I. Zemke

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program, speakers and a limited number of invited participants. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This workshop will feature talks by experts in Floer theory (and its applications to low-dimensional topology) and homotopy theory. It will include two expository lectures aimed at graduate students and other researchers who are new to the field, as well as a sequence of research talks and a contributed talks session. There will also be a panel discussion focusing on professional development. The majority of the speakers and panelists for this event will be women and gender minorities, and members of these groups and of other underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to attend. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

Portion of a letter from Maxwell to Tait dated December 4, 1867 computing the linking number of two curves

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program and speakers. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

The workshop will highlight the utility and impact of gauge theory in other areas of math. Mini-courses will cover the historical utility and impact of gauge theory in areas including low-dimensional topology, algebraic geometry, and the analysis of PDE; additional talks will cover more recent directions.

The nilpotent cone in red over the 0, and the points A, B and C, lying over the C*-fow and of the Hitchin section respectively.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program, speakers and a limited number of invited participants. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This two-day workshop will consist of various talks given by prominent female mathematicians on topics of analytic and geometric aspects of gauge theory. These will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program.  The meeting aims to support young researchers working in analytic and geometric aspects of gauge theory by   facilitating mentoring from senior colleagues and helping towards the development of crucial professional skills. The format will include mentoring pairings, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections.

Graph of the Motzkin polynomial, which is nonnegative but not a sum of squares.

The study of nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares is a classical area of real algebraic geometry dating back to Hilbert’s 17th problem. It also has rich connections to real analysis via duality and moment problems. In the last 15 years, sums of squares relaxations have found a wide array of applications from very applied areas (e.g., robotics, computer vision, and machine learning) to theoretical applications (e.g., extremal combinatorics, theoretical computer science). Also, an intimate connection between sums of squares and classical algebraic geometry has been found. Work in this area requires a blend of ideas and techniques from algebraic geometry, convex geometry and representation theory. After an introduction to nonnegative polynomials, sums of squares and semidefinite optimization, we will focus on the following three topics:

• Sums of squares on real varieties (sets defined by real polynomial equations) and connections with classical algebraic geometry.
• Sums of squares method for proving graph density inequalities in extremal combinatorics. Here addition and multiplication take place in the gluing algebra of partially labelled graphs.
• Sums of squares relaxations for convex hulls of real varieties and theta-bodies with applications in optimization.

The summer school will give a self-contained introduction aimed at beginning graduate students, and introduce participants to the latest developments. In addition to attending the lectures, students will meet in intensive problem and discussion sessions that will explore and extend the topics developed in the lectures.

A tropical stable map and the corresponding floor diagram

Enumerative geometry and the theory of moduli spaces of curves are two cornerstones of modern algebraic geometry; the two subjects have had a significant influence on each other. In the last 15 years, discrete and combinatorial methods, systematized within tropical geometry, have begun to provide new avenues of access into these two subjects. The goal of this summer school is to give students crash courses in tropical and logarithmic geometry, with a particular focus on the applications in enumerative geometry and moduli theory.  The school will consist of three courses of seven lectures each:

1. Enumeration of tropical curves/ by Hannah Markwig
2. Curve counting in tropical and algebraic geometry by Renzo Cavalieri
3. Logarithmic geometry and stable map/s by Dhruv Ranganathan

Popular visualization of the MNIST dataset

This school is offered in partnership with Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (INdAM) and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Learning theory is a rich field at the intersection of statistics, probability, computer science, and optimization. Over the last decades the statistical learning approach has been successfully applied to many problems of great interest, such as bioinformatics, computer vision, speech processing, robotics, and information retrieval. These impressive successes relied crucially on the mathematical foundation of statistical learning.

Recently, deep neural networks have demonstrated stunning empirical results across many applications like vision, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning. The field is now booming with new mathematical problems, and in particular, the challenge of providing theoretical foundations for deep learning techniques is still largely open. On the other hand, learning theory already has a rich history, with many beautiful connections to various areas of mathematics (e.g., probability theory, high dimensional geometry, game theory). The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students (and advanced undergraduates) to these foundational results, as well as to expose them to the new and exciting modern challenges that arise in deep learning and reinforcement learning.

Recently, progress in the field of topological methods in discrete mathematics has been rapid and has generated a lot of activity with the resolution of major open problems, the emergence of new lines of inquiry, and the development of new tools. These exciting new developments have not been digested into a textbook treatment. The two main goals of this school are to:

1. Provide graduate students with a thorough introduction to novel topological techniques and to a handful of their applications in the fields of combinatorics and discrete geometry with short glimpses into mathematical mechanics and algorithm complexity.
2. Expose students to current research, and guide them in research on open problems in discrete mathematics using modern topological tools.

The summer school will lead participants from appealing, simple-to-state problems at confluence of combinatorics, geometry, and topology to sophisticated topological methods that are required for their resolution. In recent years topological methods have found numerous novel applications in mathematics and beyond, such as in data science, machine learning, economics, the social sciences, and biology.  The problems we will discuss are particularly well-suited to rapidly put students in a position to approach related research questions.

Fluid-flow stream function color-coded by vorticity in 3D flat torus calculated by K. Nakai (The University of Tokyo)

This school is offered in partnership with the National Center for Theoretical Sciences.

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce graduate students to fundamental results on the Navier-Stokes and the Euler equations, with special emphasis on the solvability of its initial value problem with rough initial data as well as the large time behavior of a solution. These topics have long research history. However, recent studies clarify the problems from a broad point of view, not only from analysis but also from detailed studies of orbit of the flow.

The PCMI graduate summer school program in 2022 will consist of a sequence of 11 minicourses. The lecturers and topics for these minicourses are listed below. Each minicourse is accompanied by a problem session. The topics are arranged so that there is good material and opportunities for learning both for less experienced students as well as more advanced students. Beyond their attendance in these minicourse sessions, all graduate participants will be able to take part in the substantial other benefits of a PCMI session. This includes the opportunity to interact with the researchers in residence and take part in the research seminar component of PCMI. Many graduate students also interact in significant ways with the undergraduate cohort,,the undergraduate faculty cohort, and may also participate in the many pedagogically focused activities which form part of the K-12 Teacher Leadership Program and the Workshop for Equity in Mathematics Education. PCMI includes numerous cross-program activities to help members from all these groups interact with one another.

Several geometric ideas in the context of a surface: hyperbolic metric, CAT(0) inequality, Gromov hyperbolicity/coarse median geometry, nonpositively-curved square tiling, Besikovitch inequality. (Picture by M. Hagen and A. Sisto.)

The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students to key mainstream directions in the recent development of geometry, which sprang from Riemannian Geometry in an attempt to use its methods in various contexts of non-smooth geometry. This concerns recent developments in metric generalizations of the theory of nonpositively curved spaces and discretizations of methods in geometry, geometric measure theory and global analysis. The metric geometry perspective gave rise to new results and problems in Riemannian Geometry as well.

All these themes are intertwined and have developed either together or greatly influencing one another. The summer school will introduce some of the latest developments and the remaining open problems in these very modern areas, and will emphasize their synergy.

Image by Prof. Robert Lipshitz

The idea of stable homotopy refinements of Floer homology was first introduced by Cohen, Jones, and Segal in a 1994 paper, but it was only in the last decade that this idea became a key tool in low-dimensional and symplectic topology. The two crowning achievements of these techniques so far are Manolescu's use of his Pin(2)-equivariant Seiberg--Witten Floer homotopy type to resolve the Triangulation Conjecture and Abouzaid-Blumberg's use of Floer homotopy theory and Morava K-theory to prove the general Arnol'd Conjecture in finite characteristic. During this period, a range of related techniques, included under the umbrella of Floer homotopy theory, have also led to important advances, including involutive Heegaard Floer homology, Smith theory for Lagrangian intersections, homotopy coherence, and further connections between string topology and Floer theory. These in turn have sparked developments in algebraic topology, ranging from developments on Lie algebras in derived algebraic geometry to new computations of equivariant Mahowald invariants to new results on topological Hochschild homology.
 
The goal of the summer school is to provide participants the tools in symplectic geometry and stable homotopy theory required to work on Floer homotopy theory. Students will come away with a basic understanding of some of the key techniques, questions, and challenges in both of these fields. The summer school may be particularly valuable for participants with a solid understanding of one of the two fields who want to learn more about the other and the connections between them.

by DeDelphin Sénizergues

The topic of random graphs is at the forefront of applied probability, and it is one of the central topics in multidisciplinary science where mathematical ideas are used to model and understand the real world. At the same time, random graphs pose challenging mathematical problems that have attracted the attention from probabilists and combinatorialists since the 1960, with the pioneering work of Erdös and Rényi. Around the turn of the millennium, very large data sets started to become available, and several applied disciplines started to realize that many real-world networks, even though they are from various different origins, share many fascinating features. In particular, many of such networks are small worlds, meaning that graph distances in them are typically quite small, and they are scalefree, in the sense that there are enormous differences in the number of connections that their elements make. In particular, such networks are quite different from the classical random graph models, such as proposed by Erdös and Rényi.

Algebraic Theory Of Differential And Difference Equations, Model Theory And Their Applications

The purpose of the summer school will be to introduce graduate students to effective methods in algebraic theories of differential and difference equations with emphasis on their model-theoretic foundations and to demonstrate recent applications of these techniques to studying dynamic models arising in sciences. While these topics comprise a coherent and rich subject, they appear in graduate coursework in at best a piecemeal way, and then only as components of classes for other aims. With this Summer Graduate School, students will learn both the theoretical basis of differential and difference algebra and how to use these methods to solve practical problems. Beyond the lectures, the graduate students will meet daily in problem sessions and will participate in one-on-one mentoring sessions with the lecturers and organizers.

This school is offered in partnership with the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and the University of Hawaii, Hilo.

Representation Theory has undergone a revolution in recent years, with the development of what is now known as higher representation theory. In particular, the notion of categorification has led to the resolution of many problems previously considered to be intractable.

The school will begin by providing students with a brief but thorough introduction to what could be termed the “bread and butter of modern representation theory”, i.e., compact Lie groups and their representation theory; character theory; structure theory of algebraic groups.

We will then continue on to a number of more specialized topics. The final mix will depend on discussions with the prospective lecturers, but we envisage such topics as:

• modular representation theory of finite groups (blocks, defect groups, Broué’s conjecture);

• perverse sheaves and the geometric Satake correspondence;

• the representation theory of real Lie groups.

photo courtesy of Panagiota Daskalopoulos

[The image on this vase from Minoan Crete, dated on 1500-2000 BC, resembles an ancient solution to the Curve shortening flow - one of the most basic geometric flows. The vase is at Heraklion Archaeological Museum]

This summer graduate school is a collaboration between MSRI and the FORTH-IACM Institute in Crete. The purpose of the school is to introduce graduate students to some of the most important geometric evolution equations. Information about the location of the summer school can be found here.

This is an area of geometric analysis that lies at the interface of differential geometry and partial differential equations. The lectures will begin with an introduction to nonlinear diffusion equations and continue with classical results on the Ricci Flow, the  Mean curvature flow and other fully non-linear extrinsic flows such as the Gauss curvature flow. The lectures will also include geometric applications such as isoperimetric inequalities, topological applications such as the Poincaré onjecture, as well as recent important developments related to the study of singularities and ancient solutions.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2022, MSRI-UP will focus on Algebraic Methods in Mathematical Biology. The research program will be led by Dr. Anne Shiu, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Texas A&M University.

L 2 Spectra of K for apertures π 15 , · · · 14π 15 , π

The field of Integral Equations has a long and distinguished history, being the driving force behind many fundamental developments in various areas of mathematics including Harmonic Analysis, Partial Differential Equations, Potential Theory, Scattering Theory, Functional Analysis, Complex Analysis, Operator Theory, Mathematical Physics and Numerical Analysis.

This school will:

1. introduce graduate students to the systematic study of integral equations;
2. present some of the latest theoretical advancements in the field and open problems; and
3. involve participants in a hands-on discovery lab focused on deriving results about integral operators in two dimensions relevant for both the theoretical and numerical treatment of Integral Equations in two dimensions. The curriculum of this program will be accessible and will have a broad appeal to graduate students from a variety of mathematical areas (both theoretical and applied).

MSRI's 2022 Celebration of Women in Math event will be for graduate students, with a focus on "How to build a Career in Math".  It will be a hybrid workshop, with online and in-person activities at satellite institutions.

The event will include a panel discussion, social activities, and breakout sessions on the following topics:

• Finding (having) mentors
• How to build a network and collaborations
• How to become an independent researcher
• How to balance teaching/research/admin/life

Registration is open. 

Image by Scott Kaschner

This workshop will focus on complex dynamics in one and several variables. We will bring toghether experts in rational dynamics, transcendental dynamics, and dynamics in several complex variables in order to get new perspective and foster discussions in a warm and stimulating atmosphere. A special focus will be put on the interactions between one dimensional and higher dimensional complex dynamics, and on connections with adjacent areas of mathematics.

Image by Prof. Amanda Turner

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers whose work contributes to the study of random structures that exhibit some form of conformal self-similarity. Notable examples include the Schramm-Loewner evolution SLE, the Brownian map and random trees, Liouville Quantum Gravity, and Conformal Field Theory. A particular focus will be the discussion of analytic tools needed to address the challenges arising from the often rough underlying sets and spaces.

This workshop will explore connections between the regularity theory of minimal surfaces and of mean curvature flow. Recent breakthroughs have improved our understanding of singularity formation in both settings but the current research trends are becoming increasingly disparate. Experts from both areas will present their research and there will be ample free time to establish connections between the topics.

The world is changing, along with perceptions. Many call for the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning, for both citizenry and STEM preparation. To achieve sustainable change, though, the focus needs to extend from individuals to systems. It is not enough to change one classroom or one course. Transformation requires change at all levels: in teaching, programmatic practices, and institutions. This workshop will bring together teachers and researchers from universities, community colleges, and K-12 schools to explore the reasons for and processes by which change in university mathematics departments is initiated, promoted, and sustained and lessons learned from change efforts in K-12. It will review what we know about change at all levels and reflect on stories of failure and success.

When data automatically drop from the sky: intelligent approaches in data science change the way humans and computers interact. (Illustration: Niklas Briner)

Despite the remarkable success in extracting information from complex and (often) large-scale datasets over the last two decades, further progress is needed to making automated statistical and machine learning algorithms more reliable, robust, interpretable and trustworthy. This workshop has its focus on foundational aspects of this goal, linking areas at the interface between statistics, optimization, machine learning and computer science, such as distributional robustness and stability, adversarial and transfer learning, generalizability and meta analysis, and causality.

Parameter space for the family $e^z+c$

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This workshop is built around four minicourses that will introduce the participants to a range of recent techniques in various areas of holomorphic dynamics, given by specialists in these topics. The event is complemented by a series of talks by leaders in the field, aimed at a large audience and presenting current research directions in the area.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This workshop will feature lectures on a variety of topics in complex dynamics, given by prominent researchers in the field, as well as presentations by younger participants. It precedes the introductory workshop and will preview the major research themes of the semester program. There will be a panel discussion focusing on issues particularly relevant to junior researchers, women, and minorities, as well as other social events. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

Interface for the critical Ising model, approaching an SLE curve in the scaling limit (image by Dr. Malin P. Forsström)

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This workshop will introduce some of the major themes in probability and geometric analysis that will be relevant for the semester-long program. A series of short mini-courses will give participants the opportunity to learn about important subjects such as the Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) or the Gaussian free field (GFF), for example. The workshop will also include "visionary" lectures by prominent researchers who will outline fruitful directions for future research.

Simulation of the discrete planar Gaussian free field. Image by Dr. Ellen Powell.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register.

The Connections Workshop will feature talks on a variety of topics related to the analysis and geometry of random spaces. It will preview the research themes of the semester program and will highlight the work of women in the field. There will be a panel discussion as well as other social events. This workshop is directly prior to the Introductory Workshop, and participants are encouraged to participate in both workshops. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

MSRI and the Mathematical Science Institutes Diversity Initiative (MSIDI) are pleased to announce that the 2021 Blackwell-Tapia Conference (rescheduled from Fall 2020), will be held simultaneously at four locations nationwide.  The conference will celebrate the 2020 Blackwell-Tapia prize winner, Tatiana Toro (University of Washington), who has recently been announced as the next Director of MSRI, effective August 2022.

ONLY REGISTRATIONS FOR VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION ARE BEING ACCEPTED AS OF NOVEMBER 8.

Choose from four host sites nationwide:

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI): Berkeley, California
Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM): Los Angeles, California
Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI): Chicago, Illinois
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS): Princeton, New Jersey

The introduction of the Chern-Simons differential form in 1972 catalyzed a remarkable series of developments across mathematics and physics, continuing to the present day.

The classical Chern-Simons invariant provides an obstruction to immersing a 3-manifold conformally into Euclidean 4-space, while the quantum Chern-Simons invariants in topological field theories gave rise to many new developments in knot theory.  In physics, the Chern-Simons action for gauge fields is widely discussed as an alternative or supplement to conventional Maxwell and Einstein theories. Topological field theories encode the fractional statistics of emergent anyon particles in condensed matter.

This workshop will cover the current state of the manifold areas in mathematics and physics in which Chern-Simons and other topological field theories have had a dramatic impact, as well as their appearance in new areas ranging from integrability to number theory.

Shiing-Shen Chern, the founding Director of MSRI was born on October 28, 1911 in Jiaxing, China. We join the Chern Institute of Mathematics at Nankai University and the Yau Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University in celebrating Professor Chern's 110th Birthday, following Chinese tradition.

Image by Alexei Borodin.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register.  This workshop will focus on the integrable aspect of random matrix theory and other related probability models such as random tilings, directed polymers, and interacting particle systems. The emphasis is on communicating diverse algebraic structures in these areas which allow the asymptotic analysis possible. Some of such structures are determinantal point processes, Toeplitz and Hankel determinants, Bethe ansatz, Yang-Baxter equation, Karlin-McGregor formula, Macdonald process, and stochastic six vertex model.

An illustration of the TASEP interface growth by Leonid Petrov and Hao Yu Li.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register.

This workshop aims at providing participants with an overview of some of the recent developments in the topics of the semester, with a particular emphasis on universality and applications. This includes universality for Wigner matrices and band matrices and quantum unique ergodicity, universality for beta ensembles and log/coulomb gases, KPZ universality class, universality in interacting particle systems, the connection between random matrices and number theory.

In addition, this workshop will also explore connections with other branches of mathematics and applications to sciences and engineering. The workshop will feature presentations by both leading researchers and promising newcomers. There will be some special activities originally planned for the Connections Workshop: We will have a panel discussion of topics relevant to junior researchers, women, and minorities; a poster session for students and recent PhDs; and other social events.

This workshop is open to and welcomes all mathematicians.

An illustration of the TASEP interface growth by Leonid Petrov and Hao Yu Li.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program. Online participation will be open to all who register. This workshop aims at providing participants with an overview of some of the recent developments in the topics of the semester, with a particular emphasis on universality and applications. This includes universality for Wigner matrices and band matrices and quantum unique ergodicity, universality for beta ensembles and log/coulomb gases, KPZ universality class, universality in interacting particle systems, the connection between random matrices and number theory.

Several executions of a 3-dimensional sumcheck protocol with a random order of directions (thanks to Dev Ojha for creating the diagram)

Proofs are at the foundations of mathematics. Viewed through the lens of theoretical computer science, verifying the correctness of a mathematical proof is a fundamental computational task. Indeed, the P versus NP problem, which deals precisely with the complexity of proof verification, is one of the most important open problems in all of mathematics.

The complexity-theoretic study of proof verification has led to exciting reenvisionings of mathematical proofs. For example, probabilistically checkable proofs (PCPs) admit local-to-global structure that allows verifying a proof by reading only a minuscule portion of it. As another example, interactive proofs allow for verification via a conversation between a prover and a verifier, instead of the traditional static sequence of logical statements. The study of such proof systems has drawn upon deep mathematical tools to derive numerous applications to the theory of computation and beyond.

In recent years, such probabilistic proofs received much attention due to a new motivation, delegation of computation, which is the emphasis of this summer school. This paradigm admits ultra-fast protocols that allow one party to check the correctness of the computation performed by another, untrusted, party. These protocols have even been realized within recently-deployed technology, for example, as part of cryptographic constructions known as succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs).

This summer school will provide an introduction to the field of probabilistic proofs and the beautiful mathematics behind it, as well as prepare students for conducting cutting-edge research in this area.

a random quasiconformal map obtained from Beltrami equation by randomly assigning the values of +-1/2 for the Beltrami coefficient on small squares subdividing the unit square

This Summer Graduate School will cover basic tools that are instrumental in Random Conformal Geometry (the investigation of analytic and geometric objects that arise from natural probabilistic constructions, often motivated by models in mathematical physics) and are at the foundation of the subsequent semester-long program  "The Analysis and Geometry of Random Spaces".  Specific topics are Conformal Field Theory, Brownian Loops and related processes, Quasiconformal Maps, as well as Loewner Energy and Teichmüller Theory.

Image by Nick Schmitt

Figure 1. A rotationally symmetric solution to the self-duality equations on an open and dense subset of the torus. Singularities appear where the surface intersects the ideal boundary at infinity of the hyperbolic 3-space visualized by the wireframe.

Gauge theory is a geometric language used to formulate many fundamental physical phenomena, which has also had profound impact on our understanding of topology. The main idea is to study the space of solutions to partial differential equations admitting a very large group of local symmetries. Starting in the late 1970s, mathematicians began to unravel surprising connections between gauge theory and many aspects of geometric analysis, algebraic geometry and low-dimensional topology. This influence of gauge theory in geometry and topology is pervasive nowadays, and new developments continue to emerge.

The goal of the summer school is to introduce students to the foundational aspects of gauge theory, and explore their relations to geometric analysis and low-dimensional topology. By the end of the two-week program, the students will understand the relevant analytic and geometric aspects of several partial differential equations of current interest (including the Yang-Mills ASD equations, the Seiberg-Witten equations, and the Hitchin equations) and some of their most impactful applications to problems in geometry and topology.

This summer school will introduce graduate students to sketching-based approaches to computational linear and multi-linear algebra. Sketching here refers to a set of techniques for compressing a matrix, to one with fewer rows, or columns, or entries, usually via various kinds of random linear maps. We will discuss matrix computations, tensor algebras, and such sketching techniques, together with their applications and analysis.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2021, MSRI-UP will focus on Parking Functions: Choose your own adventure. The research program will be led by Dr. Pamela E. Harris, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Williams College.

Mathematics and Racial Justice Workshop

The overarching goal of the Workshop on Mathematics and Racial Justice is to explore the role that mathematics plays in today’s movement for racial justice. For the purposes of this workshop, racial justice is the result of intentional, active and sustained anti-racist practices that identify and dismantle racist structures and policies that operate to oppress, disenfranchise, harm, and devalue Black people. This workshop will bring together mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and STEM educators as well as members of the general public interested in using the tools of these disciplines to critically examine and eradicate racial disparities in society. Researchers with expertise or interest in problems at the intersection of mathematics, statistics and racial justice are encouraged to participate. This workshop will take place over two weeks and will include sessions on Bias in Algorithms and Technology; Fair Division, Allocation, and Representation; Public Health Disparities; and Racial Inequities in Mathematics Education.

The Corvaja-Zannier proof of Siegel's theorem using subspaces. Illustrated by Sofía Pastén Vásquez.

The theory of Diophantine equations is understood today as the study of algebraic points in algebraic varieties, and it is often the case that algebraic points of arithmetic relevance are expected to be sparse.

This summer school will introduce the participants to two of the main techniques in the subject: (i) the filtration method to prove algebraic degeneracy of integral points by means of the subspace theorem, leading to special cases of conjectures by Bombieri, Lang, and Vojta, and (ii) unlikely intersections through o-minimality and bi-algebraic geometry, leading to results in the context of the Manin-Mumford conjecture, the André-Oort conjecture, and generalizations. This SGS should provide an entry point to a very active research area in modern number theory.

The Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, aka the randomly-weighted complete graph. Edge weights are indicated using grayscale. Six distinguished vertices have been randomly chosen; edges between those vertices are shaded black to form a "hidden signal".

The courses in this summer school focus on mathematical models of group dynamics, how to describe their dynamics and their scaling limits, and the connection to discrete and continuous optimization problems.

The phrase "group dynamics" is used loosely here -- it may refer to species migration, the spread of a virus, or the propagation of electrons through an inhomogeneous medium, to name a few examples. Very commonly, such systems can be described via stochastic processes which approximately behave like the solution of an appropriate partial differential equation in the large-population limit.

Image created by Nicolas Antille, of the visualization team of the Blue Brain Project at EPFL

This workshop will be held online May 4-7 and May 10-11, 2021. The Zoom link will be provided at a later time. You must register for the workshop to receive the password.  The workshop is held in Pacific Daylight Time.

The talks in this workshop will present a wide array of current applications of topology in neuroscience, including classification and synthesis of neuron morphologies, analysis of synaptic plasticity, algebraic analysis of the neural code, topological analysis of neural networks and their dynamics, topological decoding of neural activity, diagnosis of traumatic brain injuries, and topological biomarkers for psychiatric disease. Some of the talks will be devoted to promising new directions in algebraic topology that have been inspired by neuroscience.

Microlocal analysis originated in the study of linear partial differential equations (PDEs) in the high-frequency regime, through a combination of ideas from Fourier analysis and classical Hamiltonian mechanics. In parallel, similar ideas and methods had been developed since the early times of quantum mechanics, the smallness of Planck’s constant allowing to use semiclassical methods. The junction between these two points of view (microlocal and semiclassical) only emerged in 1970s, and has taken its full place in the PDE community in the last 20 years. This methodology resulted in major advances in the understanding of linear and nonlinear PDEs in the last 50 years. Moreover, microlocal methods continue to find new applications in diverse areas of mathematical analysis, such as the spectral theory of nonselfadjoint operators, scattering theory, and inverse problems.

NOTE: The introductory sessions for this workshop will be held online the morning of April 29th.  Additional sessions will be held when it is once again possible to meet in person.  Times listed on schedule is in Pacfic Standard Time.

The world is changing, along with perceptions. Many call for the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning, for both citizenry and STEM preparation. To achieve sustainable change, though, the focus needs to extend from individuals to systems. It is not enough to change one classroom or one course. Transformation requires change at all levels: in teaching, programmatic practices, and institutions. This workshop will bring together teachers and researchers from universities, community colleges, and K-12 schools to explore the reasons for and processes by which change in university mathematics departments is initiated, promoted, and sustained and lessons learned from change efforts in K-12. It will review what we know about change at all levels and reflect on stories of failure and success.

Speaker Abstracts

Water waves

The aim of the workshop is to bring together a broad array of researchers working on incompressible fluid dynamics. Some of the key topics to be covered are Euler flows, Navier Stokes equations as well as water wave flows and associated model equations. Some emphasis will also be placed on numerical analysis of the above evolutions.

This workshop will be held online.  The Zoom link will be provided at a later time. You must register for the workshop to receive the password.  The workshop is held in Pacific Standard Time.

The workshop will address topics in the PDE analysis of the basic equations of the incompressible fluid dynamics (the Euler equations for inviscid flows, the Navier Stokes equations for viscous flows), interface problems (water waves), and other related equations. Open problems and connections to related branches of mathematics will be discussed, including the phenomena of turbulence and the zero viscosity limit. Both theoretical and numerical aspects of these topics will be considered. There will be some colloquium style lectures as well as shorter research talks. The workshop is open to all.

Image by Noomann Bassou

This workshop will be held online.  The Zoom link will be provided at a later time. You must register for the workshop to receive the password.  The workshop is held in Pacific Standard Time.

This workshop will feature talks by prominent female mathematicians whose research lies in and interfaces with mathematical fluids featuring water waves,  free boundaries, fluid structures,  viscous fluids and turbulence. The talks will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas above mentioned. There will also be a panel discussion. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

The largest multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM diversity event in the country, the SACNAS conference serves to equip, empower, and energize participants for their academic and professional paths in STEM.

For more information, click HERE.

This Introductory workshop will take place virtually, over the course of three weeks.  There will be two mini-courses and two talks by MSRI Postdoctoral Fellows each week.

Model of SARS-COV-2 with antibodies [Visual Science]

The workshop will bring together researchers from epidemiology, global health, and mathematics to discuss challenges in developing predictive models for epidemics as well as policies and algorithmic solutions for their control and mitigation. It will thus give the mathematical community access to some of the challenging issues and mathematical problems in the field.

Overturning wave, artistic drawing by E. Ifrim

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this summer school will be held online.

The purpose of this two weeks school is to introduce graduate students to the state of the art methods and results in the study of incompressible Euler’s equations in general, and water waves in particular. This is a research area which is highly relevant to many real life problems, and in which substantial progress has been made in the last decade.

The goal is to present the main current research directions in water waves. We will begin with the physical derivation of the equations, and present some of the analytic tools needed in study. The final goal will be two-fold, namely (i) to understand the local solvability of the Cauchy problem for water waves, as well as (ii) to describe the long time behavior of solutions.

Through the lectures and associated problem sessions, students will learn about a number of new analysis tools which are not routinely taught in a graduate school curriculum. The goal is to help students acquire the knowledge needed in order to start research in water waves and Euler equations.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this summer school will be held online.

Probability theory, statistics as well as mathematical physics have increasingly been used in computer science. The goal of this school is to provide a unique opportunity for graduate students and young researchers to developed multi-disciplinary skills in a rapidly evolving area of mathematics.

The topics would include spin glasses, constraint satisfiability, randomized algorithms, Monte-Carlo Markov chains and high-dimensional statistics, sparse and random graphs, computational complexity, estimation and approximation algorithms. Those topics will fall into two main categories, on the one hand problems related to spin glasses and on the other hand random algorithms.

The part of the summer school dedicated to spin glasses will be split into three parts: an introductory course about traditional spin glasses followed by two more advanced courses where spin glasses meet computer science in addition to a talk on dynamics of spin glasses. The part of the summer school on random algorithms will consist of an introductory course on phase transitions in large random structures, followed by advanced courses on theoretical bounds for computational complexity in reconstruction and inference, and on understanding rare events in random graphs and models of statistical mechanics.

The two introductory courses on spin glasses and on random algorithms will be accompanied by three exercises sessions of one hour. A one hour exercises session will follow each of the three sessions of a course for both the introductory course on spin glasses and the introductory course on random algorithms. Exercises sessions will be led by an assistant, but will primarily focus on participation of the students.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2020, MSRI-Up will focus on Branched Covers of Curves. The research program will be led by Dr. Edray Goins, Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College.

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

On May 22 portions of the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020: Today’s Mathematics, Social Justice, and Implications for Schools workshop will be streamed online via Zoom.

Friday 5/22: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00
Rico Gutstein, Preparing Students Today for Whatever Tomorrow Brings

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

On May 15 portions of the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020: Today’s Mathematics, Social Justice, and Implications for Schools workshop will be streamed online via Zoom.

Friday 5/15: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00
Dan Reinholz, Preparing teachers to notice, name, and disrupt racial and gender inequity

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 5/8: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00
Nathan Alexander, Mathematical Models in the Sociological Imagination
Lincoln Chandler, Pursuing Racial Equity within Schools 

Image drawn by Dr. Katy Craig

This workshop will be held online.  The link to join is: https://msri.zoom.us/j/92457794010. You must register for the workshop to receive the password.  The workshop is held in Pacific Standard Time.

Workshop Description:
The goal of the workshop is to explore the many emerging connections between the theory of Optimal Transport and models and algorithms currently used in the Machine Learning community. In particular, the use of Wasserstein metrics and the relation between discrete models and their continuous counterparts will be presented and discussed.

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 5/01: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00 Hyman Bass, 'Mathematics and Social Justice': An undergraduate course. What could this be?

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 4/24: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00 Padmanabhan Seshaiyer, K-12 to Post-Secondary Viewpoint Critical Issues in Mathematics Education

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 4/17: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00 Some unintended consequences of active learning

Sage Forbes-Gray, Sunset Park High School,  Brooklyn, NY, Mfa Master Teacher 
Sharon Collins - New Heights Academy Charter School, NYC, MfA Master Teacher; 
Kate Belin - Fannie Lou High School, NYC, MfA Master Teacher; 

Moderator: Courtney Ginsberg, MfA
Host: Katherine Stevenson, CSUN

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 4/10: 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00 - 1:00 Estrella Johnson, Some unintended consequences of active learning

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 3/27: Starting at 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00p - 1:00p
Nicol Turner Lee, Brookings Inst., Center for Tech Innov. -  Unconscious Bias
Saber Khan, Processing Foundation, leader of #EthicalCS -  Identity & Ethics

The link to this online workshop is: https://msri.zoom.us/j/999860976

This workshop will focus on recent developments in factorization homology, parametrized homotopy theory, and algebraic K-theory.  These seemingly disparate topics are unified by a common methodology, which leverages universal properties and unforeseen descent by way of higher category theory. Furthermore, they enjoy powerful and complementary roles in application to the cyclotomic trace.  This workshop will be a venue for experts in these areas to present new results, make substantive connections across fields, and suggest and contextualize outstanding questions and problems.  It will consist of 4 two-part lecture series and 10 one-hour talks. The lecture series will be given by Thomas Nikolaus, Akhil Mathew, David Ben-Zvi and a split Martina Rovelli and Viktoriya Ozornova.

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

Friday 3/20: Starting at 12pm PST (3pm eastern time)

12:00p - 12:45p Lisa Goldberg, Hot Hands: What Data Science Can (and Can't) Tell Us About Basketball Trends
12:45p - 1:00p Discussion with Lisa and Kate on:  What Bayes tells us about our ability to reason about randomness

Topological field theory studies the interplay of algebraic and topological structure (image credit Kevin Walker)

Link to stream workshop: https://msri.zoom.us/j/226801541

***Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the 2020 Tensor categories and topological quantum field theories workshop will no longer be held onsite at MSRI, rather it will take place online from March 16-20 as scheduled***

The decision to move this workshop online is based on the available scientific data on COVID-19, and the strong advice from experts to avoid gatherings of large groups.

Announcement: Workshop Moved Online

Download Official Notice of Change

A formal Notice of Change letter is available here, which can be shared with your institution, funding agency, and others.

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020 workshop was held online. The full workshop description and list of talks can be found HERE.

On March 12 and March 13, portions of the Critical Issues in Mathematics Education 2020: Today’s Mathematics, Social Justice, and Implications for Schools workshop will be streamed online via Zoom. Only the talks below will are scheduled at this time.  Further talks may be scheduled at a later date, and you will be notified when we know more.

Please see the schedule below, as well as links to the two sessions.
 

Thursday 3/12: Starting at 9am PST (noon eastern time)
9:00 - 9:10 Welcoming remarks
9:10 - 9:15 Introduction to CIME 2020 plan and speaker David Daley
9:15 - 9:55 David Daley, Why Your Vote Doesn't Count
9:55 - 10:00 Kate Stevenson, introduction of activity
10:00-10:30 Mathical Book Prize Announcement

Friday 3/13: Starting at 9am PST (noon eastern time)
9:00 - 9:05 Introduction of speaker Wesley Pegden
9:05 - 9:45 Wesley Pegden, Bringing Mathematics to the Courtroom
9:45 - 10:00 Q&A
 

Download Official Notice of Change

A formal Notice of Change letter is available here, which can be shared with your institution, funding agency, and others.

relations among 2-morphisms in the 2-dimensional unoriented bordism bicategory

This workshop will survey notable developments and applications of higher category theory; it will be a venue for end-users to share their vision of how to apply the theory, as well as developers to share technical advancements.  It will consist of 6 series of 3 lectures, each given by instrumental end-users & developers of higher category theory, together with a few question-answer sessions.  Each lecture series will be tailored to a diverse audience, accessible to graduate students and non-expert researchers with some background in homological also algebra.  The content of these lecture series will concern the following topics.

• K-theory: categorification, non-commutative motives, trace methods; 
• TQFT: functorial field theories, factorization homology.
• Parametrized higher category theory: stratifications, equivariant homotopy theory, operads, deformation theory and Koszul duality. 
• Synthetic higher category theory: model-independent characterizations, cosmoi.  

Picture of a Feynman graph.

This two-day workshop will survey notable developments in the foundations and applications of higher category theory. It will consist of two mini-courses given by emerging female leaders in the subject: Claudia Scheimbauer and Nathalie Wahl.  This will be paired with a problem sessions lead by selected "TA's", themselves experts in higher structures.  Each lecture series will be tailored to a diverse audience, accessible to graduate students and non-expert researchers with some background in homological algebra.  

The majority of the speakers and panelists for this event will be women and gender minorities, and members of these groups and of other underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to attend. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

Jellyfish floating to the surface, as in the evaluation algorithm for certain planar algebras.

This workshop will consist of introductory minicourses on key topics in Quantum Symmetry: fusion categories, modular tensor categories, Hopf algebras, subfactors and planar algebras, topological field theories, conformal nets, and topological phases of matter.  These minicourses will be introductory and are aimed at giving semester participants exposure to the main ideas of subfields other than their own.

Photo by drmakete lab on Unsplash

This workshop will feature several talks by experts, along with numerous 5-minute presentations by junior mathematicians, on topics related to Quantum Symmetry. Such topics will include tensor categories, subfactors, Hopf algebras, topological quantum field theory and more. There will also be a panel discussion on professional development. The majority of the speakers and panelists for this event will be women and gender minorities, and members of these groups and of other underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to attend. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

MSRI will host a Symposium on the occasion of Julia Robinson’s 100th birthday on Monday, December 9, 2019 at MSRI. Julia Robinson (1919-1985) was an internationally renowned logician of the twentieth century. She was a trailblazer in mathematics as well as in many other ways: she was the first woman president of the American Mathematical Society, and the first woman mathematician elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

Participating speakers in this day-long celebration of her work and of current mathematics insprired by her research include: Martin Davis, Kirsten Eisentrager, Yuri Matiyasevich, and  Lou van den Dries. Following the symposium, Lenore Blum will give a public lecture at UC Berkeley.

An example of a spectral network associated to the group SL(4).

Holomorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces have long held a distinguished place in low dimensional geometry, dynamics and representation theory. Recently it has become apparent that they constitute a common feature of several other highly active areas of current research in mathematics and also at the interface with physics. In some cases the areas themselves (such as stability conditions on Fukaya-type categories, links to quantum integrable systems, or the physically derived construction of so-called spectral networks) are new, while in others the novelty lies more in the role of the holomorphic differentials (for example in the study of billiards in polygons, special - Hitchin or higher Teichmuller - components of representation varieties, asymptotic properties of Higgs bundle moduli spaces, or in new interactions with algebraic geometry).

It is remarkable how widely scattered are the motivating questions in these areas, and how diverse are the backgrounds of the researchers pursuing them. Bringing together experts in this wide variety of fields to explore common interests and discover unexpected connections is the main goal of our program. Our workshop will be of interest to those working in many different fields, including low-dimensional dynamical systems (via the connection to billiards); differential geometry (Higgs bundles and related moduli spaces); and different types of theoretical physics (electron transport and supersymmetric quantum field theory).

As part of the Mathematical Sciences Collaborative Diversity Initiatives, six mathematics institutes are pleased to host their annual SACNAS pre-conference event, the 2019 Modern Math Workshop (MMW). The Modern Math Workshop is intended to encourage minority undergraduates to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences and to assist undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs in building their research networks.

Elwyn Berlekamp (1937-2019) was a pioneering contributor to combinatorial game theory, greatly advancing the subject over the course of a more than five-decade career. Along with his coauthors, John Conway and Richard Guy, Berlekamp invented the modern form of the theory, with the publication of Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays in 1982. His later work substantially advanced our understanding of the mathematical structure of well-known games such as Go, Amazons, and Dots-and-Boxes. More information about his life can be found at www.msri.org/elwyn.

This workshop will be an informal two-day mini-conference honoring Berlekamp's work and the subject he helped create. The event will consist of talks, afternoon workshops, and a combinatorial games tournament.

Microlocal analysis provides tools for the precise analysis of problems arising in areas such as partial differential equations or integral geometry by working in the phase space, i.e. the cotangent bundle, of the underlying manifold. It has origins in areas such as quantum mechanics and hyperbolic equations, in addition to the development of a general PDE theory, and has expanded tremendously over the last 40 years to the analysis of singular spaces, integral geometry, nonlinear equations, scattering theory, hyperbolic dynamical systems, probability… As this description shows microlocal analysis has become a very broad area. Due to its breadth, it is a challenge for researchers to be aware of what is happening in other parts of the field, and the impact this may have in their own research area. The purpose of this workshop is thus to bring together researchers from different parts of microlocal analysis and its applications to facilitate the transfer of new ideas. 

The objective of the meeting is to bring theorists and theoretically-motivated experimentalists together to discuss promising theoretical frameworks for understanding cognitive processes and how these may be brought to bear on interpreting neural data or formulating new experiments. We hope that this meeting will be a chance to discuss future goals for theory in neuroscience: what are missing areas and emerging approaches that might help the field to make real progress in developing theories of brain function.

Microlocal analysis provides tools for the precise analysis of problems arising in areas such as partial differential equations or integral geometry by working in the phase space, i.e. the cotangent bundle, of the underlying manifold. It has origins in areas such as quantum mechanics and hyperbolic equations, in addition to the development of a general PDE theory, and has expanded tremendously over the last 40 years to the analysis of singular spaces, integral geometry, nonlinear equations, scattering theory… This workshop will provide a comprehensive introduction to the field for postdocs and graduate students as well as specialists outside the field, building up from standard facts about the Fourier transform, distributions and basic functional analysis.

This workshop will provide a gentle introduction to a selection of applications of microlocal analysis.  These may be drawn from among geometric microlocal analysis, inverse problems, scattering theory, hyperbolic dynamical systems,  quantum chaos and relativity.  The workshop will also provide  a panel discussion, a poster session and an introduction/research session. 

This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

Some holomorphic differentials on a genus 2 surface, with close up views of singular points, image courtesy Jian Jiang.

Holomorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces have long held a distinguished place in low dimensional geometry, dynamics and representation theory. Recently it has become apparent that they constitute a common feature of several other highly active areas of current research in mathematics and also at the interface with physics. In this introductory workshop, we will bring junior and senior researchers from this diverse range of subjects together in order to explore common themes and unexpected connections.

Some holomorphic differentials on a genus 2 surface, with close up views of singular points, image courtesy Jian Jiang.

This two-day workshop will consist of various talks given by prominent female mathematicians on topics of new developments in the role of holomorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces. These will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program.  

This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

This simplicial fan in 3-dimensional space

Toric varieties are algebraic varieties defined by combinatorial data, and there is a wonderful interplay between algebra, combinatorics and geometry involved in their study. Many of the key concepts of abstract algebraic geometry (for example, constructing a variety by gluing affine pieces) have very concrete interpretations in the toric case, making toric varieties an ideal tool for introducing students to abstruse concepts.

Popular visualization of the MNIST dataset

Learning theory is a rich field at the intersection of statistics, probability, computer science, and optimization. Over the last decades the statistical learning approach has been successfully applied to many problems of great interest, such as bioinformatics, computer vision, speech processing, robotics, and information retrieval. These impressive successes relied crucially on the mathematical foundation of statistical learning.

Recently, deep neural networks have demonstrated stunning empirical results across many applications like vision, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning. The field is now booming with new mathematical problems, and in particular, the challenge of providing theoretical foundations for deep learning techniques is still largely open. On the other hand, learning theory already has a rich history, with many beautiful connections to various areas of mathematics (e.g., probability theory, high dimensional geometry, game theory). The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students (and advanced undergraduates) to these foundational results, as well as to expose them to the new and exciting modern challenges that arise in deep learning and reinforcement learning.

The image of a large sphere isometrically embedded into a small space through a C^1 embedding. (Attributions: E. Bartzos, V. Borrelli, R. Denis, F. Lazarus, D. Rohmer, B. Thibert)

This two week summer school will introduce graduate students to the theory of h-principles.  After building up the theory from basic smooth topology, we will focus on more recent developments of the theory, particularly applications to symplectic and contact geometry, fluid dynamics, and foliation theory.

Fluid-flow stream function color-coded by vorticity in 3D flat torus calculated by K. Nakai (The University of Tokyo)

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce graduate students to fundamental results on the Navier-Stokes and the Euler equations, with special emphasis on the solvability of its initial value problem with rough initial data as well as the large time behavior of a solution. These topics have long research history. However, recent studies clarify the problems from a broad point of view, not only from analysis but also from detailed studies of orbit of the flow.

from distinct distances in the plane to line incidences in R^3

In the past eight years, a number of longstanding open problems in combinatorics were resolved using a new set of algebraic techniques. In this summer school, we will discuss these new techniques as well as some exciting recent developments.

A Holomorphic Curve

Symplectic topology is a fast developing branch of geometry that has seen phenomenal growth in the last twenty years. This two weeks long summer school, organized in the setting of the Séminaire de Mathématiques Supérieures, intends to survey some of the key directions of development in the subject today thus covering: advances in homological mirror symmetry; applications to hamiltonian dynamics; persistent homology phenomena; implications of flexibility and the dichotomy flexibility/rigidity; legendrian contact homology; embedded contact homology and four-dimensional holomorphic techniques and others. With the collaboration of many of the top researchers in the field today, the school intends to serve as an introduction and guideline to students and young researchers who are interested in accessing this diverse subject. 

Rips's δ-thin triangle condition for Gromov hyperbolicity of metric spaces (Stomatapoll)

Geometric group theory studies discrete groups by understanding the connections between algebraic properties of these groups and topological and geometric properties of the spaces on which they act. The aim of this summer school is to  introduce graduate students to specific central topics and recent developments in geometric group theory. The school will also include students presentations to give the participants an opportunity to practice their speaking skills in mathematics.  Finally, we hope that this meeting will help connect Latin American students with their American and Canadian counterparts in an environment that encourages discussion and collaboration. 

An illustration of an adaptation of Quillen's classical homological stability spectral sequence argument

This summer school will give an introduction to representation stability, the study of algebraic structural properties and stability phenomena exhibited by sequences of representations of finite or classical groups -- including sequences arising in connection to hyperplane arrangements, configuration spaces, mapping class groups, arithmetic groups, classical representation theory, Deligne categories, and twisted commutative algebras.  Representation stability incorporates tools from commutative algebra, category theory, representation theory, algebraic combinatorics, algebraic geometry, and algebraic topology. This workshop will assume minimal prerequisites, and students in varied disciplines are encouraged to apply. 

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2019, MSRI-Up will focus on the application of combinatorial arguments and techniques to enumerate, examine, and investigate the existence of discrete mathematical structures with certain properties. The areas of interest for these applications encompass a wide range of mathematical fields and will include algebra, number theory, and graph theory, through weight multiplicity computations, the study of vector partition functions, and graph domination problems, respectively. The research program will be led by Dr. Pamela E. Harris, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Williams College.

Is your department interested in helping graduate students learn to teach? Perhaps your department is considering starting a teaching-focused professional development program. Or maybe your department has a program but is interested in updating and enhancing it.

Many departments now offer pre-semester orientations, semester-long seminars, and other opportunities for graduate students who are new to teaching so they will be well-equipped to provide high-quality instruction to undergraduates. The purpose of this workshop is to support faculty from departments that are considering starting a teaching-focused professional development program or, for departments that have a program, to learn ways to improve it.

The figure represents a blow-up. The so called blow-up algebras or Rees rings are the algebraic realizations of such blow-ups.

Linkage is a method for classifying ideals in local rings. Residual intersections is a generalization of linkage to the case where the two `linked' ideals  need not have the same codimension. Residual intersections are ubiquitous: they play an important role in the study of blowups, branch and multiple point loci, secant varieties, and Gauss images; they appear naturally in intersection theory; and they have close connections with integral closures of ideals. 

Commutative algebraists have long used the Frobenius or p-th power map to study commutative rings containing a finite field. The theory of tight closure and test ideals has widespread applications to the study of symbolic powers and to Briancon-Skoda type theorems for equi-characteristic rings.

Numerical conditions for the integral dependence of ideals and modules have a wealth of applications, not the least of which is in equisingularity theory. There is a long history of generalized criteria for integral dependence of ideals and modules based on variants of the Hilbert-Samuel and the Buchsbaum-Rim multiplicity that still require some remnants of finite length assumptions.

The Rees ring and the special fiber ring of an ideal arise in the process of blowing up a variety along a subvariety. Rees rings and special fiber rings also describe, respectively, the graphs and the images of rational maps between projective spaces. A difficult open problem in commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, elimination theory, and geometric modeling is to determine explicitly the equations defining graphs and images of rational maps.

The school will consist of the following four courses with exercise sessions plus a Macaulay2 workshop

• Linkage and residual intersections
• Characteristic p methods and applications
• Blowup algebras
• Multiplicity theory

GOAL: To highlight careers and opportunities in the mathematical sciences, and to prepare women
and underrepresented minorities for work in academia, industry, and government laboratories.

The purpose of the workshop is to explain Vincent Lafforgue's ground breaking work, constructing the automorphic to Galois direction of the Langlands correspondence for function fields. There will also be a number of talks on more recent developments and related results.

This workshop will bring together researchers at various frontiers, including arithmetic geometry, representation theory, mathematical physics, and homotopy theory, where derived algebraic geometry has had recent impact. The aim will be to explain the ideas and tools behind recent progress and to advertise appealing questions. A focus will be on moduli spaces, for example of principal bundles with decorations as arise in many settings, and their natural structures.    

Mathematical Modeling (MM) now has increased visibility in the education system and in the public domain. It appears as a content standard for high school mathematics and a mathematical practice standard across the K-12 curriculum (Common Core Standards; and other states’ standards in mathematics education).  Job opportunities are increasing in business, industry and government for those trained in the mathematical sciences. Quantitative reasoning is foundational for civic engagement and decision-making for addressing complex social, economic, and technological issues. Therefore, we must take action to support and sustain a significant increase in the teaching and learning of mathematical modeling from Kindergarten through Graduate School.

Mathematical modeling is an iterative process by which mathematical concepts and structures are used to analyze or gain qualitative and quantitative understanding of real world situations. Through modeling students can make genuine mathematical choices and decisions that take into consideration relevant contexts and experiences.

Mathematical modeling can be a vehicle to accomplish multiple pedagogical and mathematical goals. Modeling can be used to introduce new material, solidify student understanding of previously learned concepts, connectthe world to the classroom, make concrete the usefulness (maybe even the advantages) of being mathematically proficient, and provide a rich context to promote awareness of issues of equity, socio-political injustices, and cultural relevance in mathematics.

A critical issue in math education is that although mathematical modeling is part of the K-12 curriculum, the great majority of teachers have little experience with mathematical modeling as learners of mathematics or in their teacher preparation.  In some cases, mathematics teacher educators have limited experience with mathematical modeling while being largely responsible for preparing future teachers.

Currently, the knowledge in teaching and learning MM is underdeveloped and underexplored.  Very few MM resources seem to reach the K-16 classrooms.  Collective efforts to build a cohesive curriculum in MM and exploration of effective teaching practices based on research are necessary to make mathematical modeling accessible to teacher educators, teachers and students.

At the undergraduate level, mathematical modeling has traditionally been reserved for university courses for students in STEM majors beyond their sophomore year.  Many of these courses introduce models but limit the students’ experience to using models that were developed by others rather than giving students the opportunity to generate their own models as is common in everyday life, in modeling competitions and in industry.

The CIME workshop on MM will bring together mathematicians, teacher educators, K-12 teachers, faculty and people in STEM disciplines.  As partners we can address ways to realize mathematical modeling in the K-12 classrooms, teacher preparation, and lower and upper division coursework at universities.  The content and pedagogy associated with teaching mathematical modeling needs special attention due to the nature of modeling as a process and as a body of content knowledge.

A picture of a singularity, courtesy of Herwig Hauser

The workshop will survey several areas of algebraic geometry, providing an introduction to the two main programs hosted by MSRI in Spring 2019. It will consist of 7 expository mini-courses and 7 separate lectures, each given by top experts in the field. 

Image created by Tristan Hübsch

This workshop will be on different aspects of Algebraic Geometry relating Derived Algebraic Geometry and Birational Geometry. In particular the workshop will focus on connections to other branches of mathematics and open problems. There will be some colloquium style lectures as well as shorter research talks. The workshop is open to all.

An invariant set inhibiting transport in a two degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian system (courtesy J. D. Szezech)

This is a main workshop of the program “Hamiltonian systems, from topology to applications through analysis.”  It  will feature current developments pertaining to finite and infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems, with a mix of rigorous theory and applications.  A broad range of topics will be included, e.g., existence of and transport about invariant sets (Arnold diffusion, KAM, etc.),  techniques for projection/reduction of infinite to finite systems, and the role of topological invariants in applications.

The NSF Mathematical Sciences Institutes Diversity Committee hosts the 2018 Blackwell-Tapia Conference and Awards Ceremony. This is the ninth conference since 2000, held every other year, with the location rotating among NSF Mathematics Institutes. The conference and prize honors David Blackwell, the first African-American member of the National Academy of Science, and Richard Tapia, winner of the National Medal of Science in 2010, two seminal figures who inspired a generation of African-American, Native American and Latino/Latina students to pursue careers in mathematics. The Blackwell-Tapia Prize recognizes a mathematician who has contributed significantly to research in his or her area of expertise, and who has served as a role model for mathematical scientists and students from underrepresented minority groups, or has contributed in other significant ways to addressing the problem of underrepresentation of minorities in math.

The 2018 recipient of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize is Dr. Ronald E. Mickens, the Distinguished Fuller E. Callaway Professor in the Department of Physics at Clark Atlanta University.

The conference will include scientific talks, poster presentations, panel discussions, ample opportunities for networking, and the awarding of the Blackwell-Tapia Prize. Participants are invited from all career stages and will represent institutions of all sizes across the country, including Puerto Rico.

The Mathematical Sciences Diversity Initiative holds a Modern Math Workshop (MMW) prior to the SACNAS National Conference each year. The 2018 MMW will be hosted by SAMSI at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, Texas on October 10th and 11th, 2018. This workshop is intended to encourage undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs from underrepresented minority groups to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences and build research and mentoring networks. The Modern Math Workshop is a pre-conference event at the SACNAS National Conference. The MMW includes a keynote lecture, mini-courses, research talks, a question and answer session and a reception.

Depiction of the standard nontwist map (courtesy of G.Miloshevich).

This is a main workshop of the program “Hamiltonian systems, from topology to applications through analysis” and is a companion to the workshop next month (November 26-30).  Both workshops will feature current developments pertaining to finite and infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems, with a mix of rigorous theory and applications.  A broad range of topics will be included, e.g., existence of and transport about invariant sets (Arnold diffusion, KAM, etc.),  techniques for projection/reduction of infinite to finite systems, and the role of topological invariants in applications.

Tangled honeycomb networks | and the Advanced Light Source at LBNL

The fascinating and complicated microstructures of materials that are now visible through advanced imaging techniques challenge the frontiers of characterisation and understanding. At the same time, developments in modern geometric and topological techniques are beginning to illuminate important features of material structures, while the microstructures themselves and the analysis and prediction of their macroscopic properties are inspiring new directions in pure and applied mathematics. In a collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), this workshop aims at intensifying the interaction of mathematicians with material scientists, physicists and chemists on the structural description and design of materials.

Representing the orbits of the standard map for K = 1.2

This workshop will feature lectures on a variety of topics in Hamiltonian dynamics given by leading researchers in the area. The talks will focus on recent developments in subjects closely related to the program such as Arnold diffusion, celestial mechanics, Hamilton-Jacobi equations, KAM methods, Aubry-Mather theory and symplectic topological techniques, and on applications. The workshop is open to all mathematicians in areas related to the program.

The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students to state-of-the-art methods and results in Hamiltonian systems and symplectic geometry. We focus on recent developments on the study of chaotic motion in Hamiltonian systems and its applications to models in Celestial Mechanics.

Harmonic analysis is a central field of mathematics with a number of applications to geometry, partial differential equations, probability, and number theory, as well as physics, biology, and engineering. The Graduate Summer School will feature mini-courses in geometric measure theory, homogenization, localization, free boundary problems, and partial differential equations as they apply to questions in or draw techniques from harmonic analysis. The goal of the program is to bring together students and researchers at all levels interested in these areas to share exciting recent developments in these subjects, stimulate further interactions, and inspire the new generation to pursue research in harmonic analysis and its applications.

The image of a large sphere isometrically embedded into a small space through a C^1 embedding. (Attributions: E. Bartzos, V. Borrelli, R. Denis, F. Lazarus, D. Rohmer, B. Thibert)

This two week summer school will introduce graduate students to the theory of h-principles.  After building up the theory from basic smooth topology, we will focus on more recent developments of the theory, particularly applications to symplectic and contact geometry, and foliation theory.

Explore Outstanding Phenomena in Animal Behavior

Jointly hosted by Janelia and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), this program will bring together 15-20 advanced PhD students with complementary expertise who are interested in working at the interface of mathematics and biology. Emphasis will be placed on linking behavior to neural dynamics and exploring the coupling between these processes and the natural sensory environment of the organism. The aim is to educate a new type of global scientist that will work collaboratively in tackling complex problems in cellular, circuit and behavioral biology by combining experimental and computational techniques with rigorous mathematics and physics.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2018, MSRI-UP will focus on the core role of (linear) algebra in current research and application areas of Data Science ranging from unsupervised learning, clustering and networks, to algebraic signal processing and feature extraction, to the central role linear algebra plays in deep machine learning.  The research program will be led by Dr. David Uminsky, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of San Francisco.

This Summer Graduate School will introduce students to the modern theory of the  inhomogeneous Cauchy-Riemann equation, the fundamental partial differential equation of Complex Analysis. This theory uses powerful tools of partial differential equations, differential geometry and functional analysis to obtain a refined understanding of holomorphic functions on complex manifolds. Besides students planning to work in complex analysis, this course will be valuable to those planning to study partial differential equations, complex differential and algebraic geometry, and operator theory. The exposition will be self-contained and the prerequisites will be kept at a minimum

Higher categorical structures and homotopy methods have made significant influence on geometry in recent years. This summer school is aimed at transferring these ideas and fundamental technical tools to the next generation of mathematicians.

The summer school will focus on the following four topics:  higher categorical structures in geometry, derived geometry, factorization algebras, and their application in physics.  There will be eight to ten mini courses on these topics, including mini courses led by Chirs Brav, Kevin Costello, Jacob Lurie, and Ezra Getzler. The prerequisites will be kept at a minimum, however, a introductory courses in differential geometry, algebraic topology and abstract algebra are recommended.

The Infinite Possibilities Conference (IPC) is a national conference that is designed to promote, educate, encourage and support women of color interested in mathematics and statistics, as a step towards addressing the underrepresentation of African-Americans, Latinas, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders in these fields. 

IPC aims to:

• fulfill a need for role models and community-building
• provide greater access to information and resources for success in graduate school and beyond
• raise awareness of factors that can support or impede underrepresented women in the mathematical sciences

A unique gathering, the conference brings together participants from across the country, at all stages of education and career, for mentoring and mathematics.

The workshop will bring together key researchers working in various areas of Group Representation Theory to strengthen the interaction and collaboration between them and to make further progress on a number of basic problems and conjectures in the field. Topics of the workshop include
-- Global-local conjectures in the representation theory of finite groups
-- Representations and cohomology of simple, algebraic and finite groups
-- Connections to Lie theory and categorification, and
-- Applications to group theory, number theory, algebraic geometry, and combinatorics.

The purpose of the workshop is to bring together specialists to work on understanding the many-faceted mathematical structures underlying problems in enumerative geometry. Topics represented at the workshop will include: geometric representation theory, supersymmetric gauge theory, string theory, knot theory, and derived geometry, all of which have had a profound effect on the development of modern enumerative geometry.

The homological conjectures in commutative algebra are a network of conjectures that have generated a tremendous amount of activity in the last 50 years. They had largely been resolved for commutative rings that contain a field, but, with the exception of some low dimensional cases, several remained open in mixed characteristic --- until recently, when Yves André announced a proof of Hochster's Direct Summand Conjecture. The progress comes from systematically applying Scholze's theory of perfectoid spaces, which had already shown its value by solving formidable problems in number theory and representation theory. One of the goals of the workshop is to cover the ingredients going into the proofs of the Direct Summand Conjecture.

On March 8-10, 2018, IPAM will host a conference showcasing the achievements of Latinx in the mathematical sciences. The goal of the conference is to encourage Latinx to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences, to promote the advancement of Latinx currently in the discipline, to showcase research being conducted by Latinx at the forefront of their fields, and, finally, to build a community around shared academic interests. The conference will be held on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA. It will begin at noon on Thursday, March 8.

This conference is sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Institutes Diversity Initiative, with funding from the National Science Foundation Division of Mathematical Sciences.

Our mathematics education system is inequitable. It operates in ways that leave a significant proportion of students with negative mathematics experiences and inadequate mathematical preparation. The problem is historical and systemic, and the students most disaffected by the current system are overwhelmingly Black and Latino, Indigenous, poor, women, immigrant or first generation college students. If our mathematics community is to sustainably grow and thrive, mathematics education at all levels must be transformed.

This workshop focuses on students for whom we do not yet successfully ensure access to and advancement in mathematics. Sessions will share relevant programmatic efforts and innovative research that have been shown to maintain or increase students’ engagement and interests in mathematics across k-12, undergraduate and graduate education. The sessions will focus particularly on reproducible efforts that affirm those students’ identities and their diverse intellectual resources and lived experiences. These efforts at various levels of mathematics education will highlight ways in which meaningful experiences in mathematics can disrupt ongoing systemic oppression. Participants will leave with conceptual and practical ways to open up and elevate mathematics education where all students thrive.

Group Photo

The workshop will survey various important and active areas of the representation theory of finite and algebraic groups, and introduce the audience to several basic open problems in the area. It will consist of 6 series of 3 lectures each given by top experts in the field. The lectures are designed for a diverse audience and will be accessible to non-specialists and graduate students with some background in representation theory. Topics covered include Representation theory of algebraic groups, Decomposition numbers of finite groups of Lie type, Deligne-Lusztig theory,  Block theory, Categorification, and Local-global-conjectures.

This intensive two day workshop will introduce graduate students and recent PhD’s to some current topics of research in Representation Theory. It will consists of a mixture of survey talks on the hot topics in the area given by leading experts and research talks by junior mathematicians covering subjects such as new developments in character theory, group cohomology, representations of Lie algebras and algebraic groups, geometric representation theory, and categorification. 

This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

This workshop will consist of expository mini-courses and lectures introducing various aspects of modern enumerative geometry, among which: enumeration via intersection theory on moduli spaces of curves or sheaves, including Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas invariants; motivic and K-theoretic refinement of these invariants; and categorical invariants (derived categories of coherent sheaves, Fukaya categories).

This two-day workshop will provide an overview of significant developments and open problems in modern enumerative geometry, from the perspectives of both algebraic geometry and symplectic topology. 

This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

The Women in Topology (WIT) network is an international group of female mathematicians interested in homotopy theory whose main goal is to increase the retention of women in the field by providing both unique collaborative research opportunities and mentorship between colleagues.  The MSRI WIT meeting will be organized as an afternoon of short talks from participants, followed by two days of open problem seminars and working groups designed to stimulate new collaborations, as well as to strengthen those already ongoing among the participants.

Description

The Bay Area Differential Geometry Seminar meets 3 times each year and is a 1-day seminar on recent developments in differential geometry and geometric analysis, broadly interpreted. Typically, it runs from mid-morning until late afternoon, with 3-4 speakers. Lunch will be available and the final talk will be followed by dinner. Here is the seminar schedule with abstracts and other information: BADG October 2017-Berkeley, CA

As part of the Mathematical Sciences Collaborative Diversity Initiatives, nine mathematics institutes are pleased to offer their annual SACNAS pre-conference event, the 2017 Modern Math Workshop (MMW). The Modern Math Workshop is intended to encourage minority undergraduates to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences and to assist undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs in building their research networks. The Modern Math Workshop is part of the SACNAS National Conference; the workshop and the conference take place in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The MMW starts at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, October 18 with registration beginning at noon.

This workshop will focus on the interaction between Combinatorics, Geometry and Topology, including recent developments and techniques in areas such as 

-- polytopes and cell complexes,
-- simplicial complexes and higher order graph theory,
-- methods from equivariant topology and configuration spaces,
-- geometric combinatorics in optimization and social choice theory,
-- algebraic and algebro-geometric methods.

The introductory workshop will present the main topics that will be the subject of much of the Geometric and Topological Combinatorics Program at MSRI.  Key areas of interest are point configurations and matroids, hyperplane and subspace arrangements, polytopes and polyhedra, lattices, convex bodies, and sphere packings. This workshop will consist of introductory talks on a variety of topics, intended for a broad audience. 

This workshop will feature lectures on a variety of topics in geometric and topological combinatorics, given by prominent women and men in the field. It precedes the introductory workshop and will preview the major research themes of the semester program. There will be a panel discussion focusing on issues particularly relevant to junior researchers, women, and minorities, as well as other social events. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

This workshop will consist of several short courses related to high dimensional convex geometry, high dimensional probability, and applications in data science. The lectures will be accessible for graduate students.

This workshop will be on topics connected with Asymptotic Geometric Analysis - a relatively new field, the young finite dimensional cousin of Banach Space theory, functional analysis and classical convexity. We study high, but finite, dimensional objects, where the disorder of many parameters and many dimensions is regularized by convexity assumptions.  This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

The summer school will be an introduction to the more algebraic aspects of the theory of automorphic forms and representations. One of the goals will be to understand the statements of the main conjectures in the Langlands programme. Another will be to gain a good working understanding of the fundamental definitions in the theory, such as principal series representations, the Satake isomorphism, and of course automorphic forms and representations for groups such as GL_n and its inner forms.

The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students to the recent developments in the area of dispersive partial differential equations (PDE), which have received a great deal of attention from mathematicians, in part due to ubiquitous applications to nonlinear optics, water wave theory and plasma physics.

Recently remarkable progress has been made in understanding existence and uniqueness of solutions to nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) and KdV equations, and properties of those solutions. We will outline the basic tools that were developed to address these questions. Also we will present some of recent results on derivation of NLS equations from quantum many particle systems and will discuss how methods developed to study the NLS can be relevant in the context of the derivation of this nonlinear equation.

The theory of dynamical systems has witnessed very significant developments in the last decades, includi​n​g the work of two 2014 Fields medalists, Artur Avila and Maryam Mirzakhani. ​The school will concentrate on the recent significant developments in the field of dynamical systems and present some of the present main streams of research. Two central themes will be those of partial hyperbolicity on one side, and rigidity, group actions and renormalization on the other side.​ ​Other themes will ​include homogeneous dynamics and geometry and dynamics on infinitely flat surfaces (both providing connections to the work of Maryam Mirzakhani), topological dynamics, thermodynamical formalism, singularities and bifurcations in analytic dynamical systems.  

McMullen’s g-Conjecture from 1970 is a shining example of mathematical foresight that combined all results available at that time to conjure a complete characterization of face numbers of convex simple/simplicial polytopes. The key statement in its verification is that certain combinatorial numbers associated to geometric (or topological) objects are non-negative. The aim of this workshop is to introduce graduate students to selected contemporary topics in geometric combinatorics with an emphasis on positivity questions. It is fascinating that the dual notions of simple and simplicial polytopes lead to different but equally powerful algebraic frameworks to treat such questions. A key feature of the lectures will be the simultaneous development of these algebraic frameworks from complementary perspectives: combinatorial-topological and convex-geometric.  General concepts (such as Lefschetz elements, Hodge–Riemann–Minkowski inequalities) will be developed side-by-side, and analogies will be drawn to concepts in algebraic geometry, Fourier analysis, rigidity theory and measure theory. This allows for entry points for students with varying backgrounds.  The courses will be supplemented with guest lectures highlighting further connections to other fields.

We will give an introduction to categorical representation theory, focusing on the example of Soergel bimodules, which is a categorification of the Iwahori-Hecke algebra. We will give a comprehensive introduction to the "tool box" of modern (higher) representation theory: diagrammatics, homotopy categories, categorical diagonalization, module categories, Drinfeld center, algebraic Hodge theory.

Subfactor theory is a subject from operator algebras, with many surprising connections to other areas of mathematics. This summer school will be devoted to understanding the representation theory of subfactors, with a particular emphasis on connections to quantum symmetries, fusion categories, planar algebras, and random matrices

This workshop will focus on preparing each participant for a successful career as a mathematician at a college or university. Beginning with the hiring process, a thorough discussion of the various elements of the application packet will take place in the context of each participant's materials. Working individually with experienced faculty, participants will review and refine their cover letters, C.V., research, and teaching statements. This will be followed by activities related to the interview. The primary goals of the workshop are to develop an understanding of the hiring process from the institutions' perspective, to refine the application packet, to learn what to expect during the interview process (including the job talk), and to prepare for negotiating salary and start-up packages.

Additional time will be spent on aspects of the pre-tenure years including the development of a research program, writing grant proposals, and mentoring research students. The three-day workshop will consist of one-on-one work with experienced mentors, small group discussions, critique of written materials, plenary sessions, and time for individual work and consultation.

The purpose of the school will be to introduce graduate students to foundational results in commutative algebra, with particular emphasis of the diversity of the related topics with commutative algebra. Some of these topics are developing remarkably in this decade and through learning those subjects the graduate students will be stimulated toward future research. 

This workshop will be focused on presenting the latest developments in analytic number theory, including (but not restricted to) recent advances in sieve theory, multiplicative number theory, exponential sums, arithmetic statistics, estimates on automorphic forms, and the Hardy-Littlewood circle method.

The Bay Area Differential Geometry Seminar meets 3 times each year and is a 1-day seminar on recent developments in differential geometry and geometric analysis, broadly interpreted. Typically, it runs from mid-morning until late afternoon, with 3-4 speakers. Lunch will be available and the final talk will be followed by dinner.

Success rates in mathematics as well as recruitment and retention rates in the mathematics pipeline are low at all education levels and are, across predictable demographics, disproportionately low for students who are women, Latin@, Black, American Indian, recent immigrants, emergent bilinguals/multilinguals, and poor. Efforts to address these low rates often focus on programmatic solutions such as creating mentoring or bridge programs to address perceived deficiencies. While these programs achieve some success, evidence suggests that they may not substantially improve students’ subsequent success in mathematics or meaningfully address the ways that students experience mathematics instruction.

The 2017 CIME workshop will focus on observations of mathematics classrooms through the lens of equity. Specifically, we will use observation as a tool for understanding and improving imbalances of access, participation, and power in mathematics teaching and learning. In doing so, we seek to better understand students’ experiences in mathematics classrooms in order to improve academic success, recruitment and retention, and meaningful experiences for historically marginalized populations.

Five questions structure the highly interactive design of the workshop:

1. What does it mean to create an equitable classroom environment? How can the structure of classroom interactions lead to imbalances of access, identity, and power in mathematics teaching and learning? How can such structures be rebuilt to better serve all students?
2. How might observations of mathematics instruction help us to identify power dynamics in classrooms? What language is helpful to describe interactions in mathematics classrooms? What might we learn from observations about how culture and identity are developed for some students but not others? What do classroom observations reveal about how instruction supports or discourages engagement in mathematics for students of different backgrounds?
3. What does it mean to observe interactions in a mathematics classroom with an eye towards equity? What language is helpful to describe interactions in mathematics classrooms? How do we observe and describe interactions among students, between students and mathematics, between students and instructors, and between students and resources (i.e., textbooks, computers, chalkboards, manipulatives)?
4. What professional experiences can support mathematics instructors to learn how to observe for, describe, interpret, and productively address interactions in the mathematics classroom from the lens of equity? What professional experiences can support mathematics instructors to increase the number of equitable interactions and decrease the number of inequitable ones in their classrooms?
5. What measures might be useful in tracking our progress in learning to see, describe, interpret, and productively address (in)equitable interactions in mathematics classrooms? What measures and tools might be useful in tracking the impacts on instruction and student learning? How might we develop infrastructure to help with this work (video library, faculty resources, etc.)?

The Bay Area Differential Geometry Seminar meets 3 times each year and is a 1-day seminar on recent developments in differential geometry and geometric analysis, broadly interpreted. Typically, it runs from mid-morning until late afternoon, with 3-4 speakers. Lunch will be available and the final talk will be followed by dinner.

The introductory workshop will present, through short minicourses and introductory lectures, the main topics that will be the subject of much of the Analytic Number Theory Programme at MSRI. These topics include the theory of multiplicative functions, the theory of modular forms and L-functions, the circle method, sieve methods, and the theory of exponential sums over finite fields

This workshop will consist of lectures on the current state of research in analytic number theory, given by prominent women and men in the field.  The workshop is open to all graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program; it will also include a panel discussion session among female researchers on career issues, as well as other social events

This week-long workshop will serve as an introduction for graduate students, postdocs, and other researchers to the main themes of the program.  It will feature accessible talks by a number of leading harmonic analysts, including several short courses on the core ideas and techniques in the field.  There will also be a problem session, to which all participants are encouraged to contribute. 

This workshop will highlight the work of several prominent women working in harmonic analysis, including some of the field's rising stars.  There will also be a panel discussion.  There will also be a contributed poster session.  This workshop is open to, and poster contributions are welcome from all mathematicians.

The main theme of the workshop is the spectrum of analytic properties running from Kazhdan's property (T) at one end to von Neumann's amenability at the other, that forms a foundational organizing structure for infinite groups and spaces. These properties can be described both analytically, via unitary representation theory, and geometrically, using embedding properties for discrete spaces. Connections with probability and combinatorics will likewise be addressed during the meeting.

A 3-day joint workshop of MSRI and Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Navigation in flies, mosquitos and ants is an interesting scientific problem that has considerable societal importance because of their role as disease vectors. This meeting will address two important aspects of navigation: 1) how are locations and orientations in space computed, represented and used in the insect brain, and 2) how do interactions between an organism and its environment affect its ability to navigate.

The Bay Area Differential Geometry Seminar meets 3 times each year and is a 1-day seminar on recent developments in differential geometry and geometric analysis, broadly interpreted. Typically, it runs from mid-morning until late afternoon, with 3-4 speakers. Lunch will be available and the final talk will be followed by dinner.

Bringing together new and experienced leaders of Math Circles and other similar outreach programs, this year’s Circle on the Road will include discussions, presentations, and opportunities to facilitate different mathematical problems. In addition, some informal STEM education researchers will join us to further our research and evaluation efforts.