Thursday, January 10th
Speaker: Tom Duchamp
Title :Organizational Meeting

Thursday, January 17th
Speaker : Jim Morrow, Department of Mathematics, UW
Title : Undergraduate Research and Competition Opportunities
Abstract: Undergraduate research is encouraged and supported in the Math Department: Grant support is available to support work with individual faculty during the academic year. There is also a summer REU program in which students work full time on projects with faculty and TAs. There is also an opportunity to compete in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling. We have been very successful in this competition. Another activity that undergrads are encouraged to be part of is Mathday.

Speaker : Marina Meila, Department of Statistics, UW
Title : Consensus finding, exponential models, and infinite rankings
Abstract:This talk is concerned with summarizing -- by means of statistical models -- of data that expresses preferences. This data is typically a set of rankings of n items by a panel of experts; the simplest summary is the "consensus ranking", or the "centroid" of the set of rankings. Such problems appear in many tasks, ranging from combining voter preferences to boosting of search engines.

We study the problem in its more general form of estimating a parametric model known as the Generalized Mallows (GM) model. I will present an exact estimation algorithm, non-polynomial in theory, but extremely effective in comparison with existing algorithms. Then we introduce the infinite GM model, corresponding to "rankings" over an infinite set of items, and show that this model is both elegant and of practical significance. Finally, the talk will touch upon the subject of multimodal distributions and clustering.

Joint work with: Bhushan Mandhani, Le Bao, Kapil Phadnis, Arthur Patterson, Harr Chen, Alnur Ali, and Jeff Bilmes

Thursday, January 24th
Speaker : Anna Karlin, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, UW
Title : Optimizing in a Strategic World: An Introduction to Algorithmic Game Theory
Abstract: Designing algorithms, systems and protocols with optimal or near-optimal performance lies at the heart of computer science. In the age of the Internet, however, we must take into account that many users of our systems are driven by an economic goal, and interact with varying degrees of collaboration and competition. Moreover, the strategic nature of interactions in online dynamic marketplaces means that a tweak you make to your algorithm today, expecting improved performance, can end up degrading performance tomorrow, due to unanticipated responses by strategic users.

The field of algorithmic game theory addresses this issue, as well as a wide variety of other problems at the intersection of game theory, economics and computer science. In this talk, we survey this area.

Thursday, January 31st
Speaker : Hari Narayanan, Departments of Mathematics and Statistics, UW
Title : Curses and blessings of dimensionality in data analysis
Abstract: The analysis of high dimensional data is plagued by the curse of dimensionality. This adversely affects how hard it is to optimize the value of a function in high dimensions and how much data one needs to be able to make certain inferences in high dimensions. In some situations, this curse is mitigated by what are called "blessings of dimensionality", an example of which is the concentration of measure in high dimension. I will describe some situations where these phenomena take effect.

Friday, February 8th (note unusual day),
Speaker : Tom Daniel, Department of Biology
Title : Math meets muscle: how many molecular motors mediate motion (Math Across Campus Series)
Abstract: Muscle is nature's most versatile machine. Converting chemical energy into mechanical work, muscle can act as an actuator, a brake, or even a spring. In collaboration with undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs, we have focused on understanding how billions of molecular motors can interact to drive motion in animals. We have used everything from simple algebra to cloud computing to calculate and predict how forces are generated.

Thursday, February 14th
Speaker : William Stein, Department of Mathematics, UW
Title : Sage: Creating a Viable Free Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab.
Abstract: Sage is a mathematical software project I started in 2005. Come to this talk to learn about where Sage comes from and see a demo.

Thursday, February 21st
Speaker : Krzysztof Burdzy, Department of Mathematics, UW
Title : Financial mathematics and stochastic calculus
Abstract: I will discuss some mathematical ideas related to financial mathematics and stochastic processes. The presentation will be totally informal and accessible to all undergraduate students. The talk will effectively be an advertisement for the course Math 480 "Stochastic Calculus for Option Pricing" to be offered in the Spring Quarter 2013.

Thursday, February 28th
Speaker : Tom Duchamp, Department of Mathematics
Title : 3D Photography
Abstract: The goal of 3D photography is the inverse of of computer aided manufacturing: given a physical object, such as a clay model of a car, a sculpture or a chair, create an electronic representation or model capturing its shape and appearance. I will give a brief summary of the work of our 3D photography group at the University of Washington. I will then explain some of the mathematical and statistical ideas behind it.

Thursday, March 7th
Speaker : Randy LeVeque, Department of Applied Mathematics, UW
Title : Numerical Modeling of Tsunamis
Abstract: In the past decade, devastating tsunamis have killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused billions of dollars of damage. It is only a matter of time until a Magnitude 9 earthquake off our coast wreaks similar havoc in Washington State. Can mathematics help us prepare? I will describe the partial differential equations that must be solved and some of the scientific, mathematical, algorithmic, and societal challenges that arise when modeling tsunamis.

Thursday, March 14th
Speaker : Eric Shea-Brown, Department of Applied Mathematics, UW
Title : What's math telling us about the brain these days?
Abstract: In the form of dynamical systems, random processes, and information theory, mathematics has become central to our study of the brain. We'll explore several recent efforts that use these tools to link dynamics and function in neural circuits.

For information on the Applied and Computational Math Sciences (ACMS) Degree at the UW, click here: ACMS Website
Please send comments, corrections, and suggestions to: greenbau[at]math[dot]washington[dot]edu or vvasan[at]u[dot]washington[dot]edu.