Speaker: Jack Wesley, Department of Mathematics, UC Davis

Title: Decision Problems in Low-Dimensional Topology Speaker: Kate Petersen, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, CSU, University of Minnesota Duluth Abstract: Due to Perelman’s proof of the Geometrization conjecture every closed 3-manifold can be decomposed into geometric pieces. These pieces exhibit one of Thurston’s eight model geometries.  This gives rise to the natural question: Given a 3-manifold how (quickly) […]

Title: Shape Optimization: Old and New Speaker: Edouard Oudet,  LJK, Université Grenoble Alpes Abstract: We first introduce what is shape Optimization and the most classical problems of the field like the isoperimetric problem, the study of minimal surfaces, the characterization of irrigation networks, etc. In a second step we focus on a more recent question related […]

Title: Packing lines, minimizing energy, and applications to communications Speaker: Josiah Park, Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University Abstract: Structured geometric point sets play important roles in coding theory, mathematical biology, computational chemistry, wireless communications, compressed sensing, and 'big data' applications due to their often desirable statistical properties for measurement and transmission. Best packings of […]

Title: Frequentist Model Averaging in the Generalized Multinomial Logit Model Speaker: Tonia Zeng, Applied Business Sciences and Economics, University of La Verne Abstract: The generalized multinomial logit (GMNL) model accommodates scale heterogeneity to the random parameters logit (RPL) model. It has been often used to study people's preferences and predict people's decisions in many areas, […]

Title: Human Computers in Astronomy: Women Astronomers at Mount Wilson Observatory during the Early Twentieth Century Speaker: Eun-Joo Ahn, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara Abstract: Mount Wilson Observatory was founded by astrophysicist George Ellery Hale in 1904 with funding from the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Since then, it has become one of the most prominent […]

Title: How do mathematicians believe? Speaker: Brian P Katz (BK), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, CSU, Long Beach Abstract: Love it or hate it, many people believe that mathematics gives humans access […]

Title: Between Yes and No: making decisions under uncertainty. Speaker: Ami Radunskaya, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Pomona College Abstract: Often we attempt to answer a question with a “yes” or a […]

Title: An introduction to algebraic statistics Speaker: Luis David Garcia Puente, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Colorado College Abstract: Algebraic statistics is an interdisciplinary field that uses tools from computational […]

Title: Continuity Versus Uniform Continuity Speaker: Gerald Beer, Department of Mathematics, California State University Abstract: In this talk we discuss the class of metric spaces - called the UC-spaces - whose members have this characteristic property:  each continuous function f on X  must be uniformly continuous. Gerald Beer, PhD UCLA 1971 won the faculty prize for teaching assistants […]