CMSA

09-01-2015 Differential Geometry Seminar
2015-09-01 13:12 (America/New_York) | MA

08-31-2015 Mathematical Physics Seminar
2015-08-31 13:10 | MA

2015 Conference on Big Data
2015-08-24 08:45 - 2015-08-26 16:00 | Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138
The Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications will be having a conference on Big Data August 24-26, 2015, in Science Center Hall B at Harvard University. This conference will feature many speakers from the Harvard Community as well as many scholars from across the globe, with talks focusing on computer science, statistics, math and physics, and economics.

Monday, August 24

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Sendhil Mullainathan
Prediction Problems in Social Science: Applications of Machine Learning to Policy and Behavioral Economics

9:45am
Mike Luca
Designing Disclosure for the Digital Age

10:30
Break

10:45
Jianqing Fan
Big Data Big Assumption: Spurious discoveries and endogeneity

11:30am
Daniel Goroff
Privacy and Reproducibility in Data Science

12:15pm
Break for Lunch

2:00pm
Ryan Adams
Exact Markov Chain Monte Carlo with Large Data

2:45pm
David Dunson
Scalable Bayes: Simple algorithms with guarantees

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Michael Jordan
Computational thinking, inferential thinking and Big Data

4:30pm
Joel Tropp
Applied Random Matrix Theory

5:15pm
David Woodruff
Input Sparsity and Hardness for Robust Subspace Approximation

Tuesday, August 25

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Gunnar Carlsson
Persistent homology for qualitative analysis and feature generation

9:45am
Andrea Montanari
Semidefinite Programming Relaxations for Graph and Matrix Estimation: Algorithms and Phase Transitions

10:30am
Break

10:45am
Susan Athey
Machine Learning and Causal Inference for Policy Evaluation

11:30am
Denis Nekipelov
Robust Empirical Evaluation of Large Competitive Markets

12:15pm
Break for Lunch

2:00pm
Lucy Colwell
Using evolutionary sequence variation to make inferences about protein structure and function: Modeling with Random Matrix Theory

2:45pm
Simona Cocco
Inverse Statistical Physics approaches for the modeling of protein families

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Remi Monasson
Inference of top components of correlation matrices with prior informations

4:30pm
Sayan Mukherjee
Random walks on simplicial complexes and higher order notions of spectral clustering

A Banquet from 7:00 – 8:30pm will follow Tuesday’s talks. This event is by invitation only.
Wednesday, August 26

Time
Speaker
Title

8:45am
Meet and Greet

9:00am
Ankur Moitra
Beyond Matrix Completion

9:45am
Florent Krzakala
Optimal compressed sensing with spatial coupling and message passing

10:30am
Break

10:45am
Piotr Indyk
Fast Algorithms for Structured Sparsity

11:30am
Guido Imbens
Exact p-values for network inference

12:15pm
Break for lunch

2:00pm
Edo Airoldi
Some fundamental ideas for causal inference on large networks

2:45pm
Ronitt Rubinfeld
Something for almost nothing: sublinear time approximation algorithms

3:30pm
Break

3:45pm
Lenka Zdeborova
Clustering of sparse networks: Phase transitions and optimal algorithms

4:30pm
Jelani Nelson
Dimensionality reductions via sparse matrices

GAMES ON HETEROGENEOUS GRAPHS
2015-08-17 14:00 - 17:00 | Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138
A major challenge in evolutionary biology is to understand how spatial population structure affects the evolution of social behaviors such as
cooperation. This question can be investigated mathematically by studying evolutionary processes on graphs. Individuals occupy vertices and interact with neighbors according to a matrix game. Births and deaths occur stochastically according to an update rule. Previously, full mathematical results have only been obtained for graphs with strong symmetry properties. Our group is working to extend these results to certain classes of asymmetric graphs, using tools such as random walk theory and harmonic analysis.

Here is a list of the scholars participating in this program.

Name

Shing-Tung Yau

Martin Nowak

Ben Adlam

Ben Allen

Yu-Ting Chen

An Huang

Gabor Lippner

MATH-PHYSICS PROGRAM
2015-01-02 09:00 - 2015-12-31 17:00 | CMSA 20 Garden Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 United States
In the past thirty years there have been deep interactions between mathematics and theoretical physics which have tremendously enhanced both subjects. The focal points of these interactions include string theory, general relativity, and quantum many-body theory.
String theory has been at the center of the ongoing effort to uncover the fundamental principles of nature and in particular to unify Einstein’s geometric theory of gravity with quantum theory. The development of this field has sparked a historically unprecedented synergy between mathematics and physics. Progress at the forefront of theoretical physics has relied crucially on very recent developments in pure mathematics. At the same time insights from physics have led to both new branches of pure mathematics as well as dramatic progress in old branches.
Several examples from the recent past exemplifying this synergy include the prediction from string theory of mirror symmetry, a highly unexpected mathematical equivalence between distinct pairs of Calabi-Yau manifolds. This fueled exciting developments in algebraic, enumerative and symplectic geometry. At the same time the realization of string theory as a phenomenologically viable physical theory depends crucially on detailed mathematical properties of these manifolds. In Einstein’s theory of general relativity the proofs of the positive energy theorem and the stability of flat spacetime were accompanied by fundamental new results in functional analysis, differential geometry and minimal surface theory. In the coming decades we expect many more important discoveries to arise from the interface of mathematics and physics. The Cheng Fund will foster these efforts.

Here is a partial list of the mathematicians who have indicated that they will attend part or all of this special program

Name
Tentative Visiting Dates

Po-Ning Chen
2/1/15-4/30/15

Hong-Jian He
3/5/15-5/5/15

Monica Guica
12/1/14-3/15/15

Amer Iqbal
1/8/15-4/8/15

Suvrat Raju
2/25/15-5/25/15

Mithat Ünsal
9/1/15-12/31/15

Random Matrix Program
2014-11-17 09:00 - 2014-12-18 17:00 | MA
Large random matrices provide some of the simplest models for large, strongly correlated quantum systems. The statistics of the energy levels of ensembles of such systems are expected to exhibit universality, in the sense that they depend only on the symmetry class of the system. Recent advances have enabled a rigorous understanding of universality in the case of orthogonal, Hermitian, or symplectic matrices with independent entries, resolving a conjecture of Wigner-Dyson-Mehta dating back 50 years. These new developments have exploited techniques from a wide range of mathematical areas in addition to probability, including combinatorics, partial differential equations, and hydrodynamic limits. It is hoped that these new techniques will be useful in the analysis of universal behaviour in matrix ensembles with more complicated structure such as random regular graph models, or 2D matrix ensembles, as well as more physically relevant systems such as band matrices and random Schroedinger-type Hamiltonians. For some of these models, results in the direction of universality have already been obtained.

Here is a partial list of the mathematicians who are participating in this program.

Name

Horng-Tzer Yau

Qian Lin

Roland Bauerschmidt

Miika Nikula

Yu-Ting Chen

Ben Landon

Yuchen Pei

Philippe Sosoe

Topological Insulators and Mathematical Science – Conference and Program
2014-09-15 14:00 - 19:00 | CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
The CMSA will be hosting a conference on the subject of topological insulators and mathematical science on September 15-17. Seminars will take place each day from 2:00-7:00pm in Science Center Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA.
