The Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics and the Department of Statistics will host a series of six lectures on numerical methods in data science and two seminars on deep neural networks in the afternoons of June 17, 19, 21. Please visit the event webpage to register if you are interested to attend.
Hello! My name is Merlin, and I'm in the second year of the Master's program in Mathematics with a minor in Physics at the Technical University of Munich. Having completed all the courses required for my Master's degree, I'm concluding my studies with writing a Master's thesis about the mathematical analysis of a multi-scale PDE model for vegetation pattern formation in dryland ecosystems from April 15 to September 30 this year. Professor Mary Silber is my supervisor here at UChicago, and Professor Christian Kuehn is my supervisor at the TU Munich.
I have a background especially in Biomathematics, Nonlinear Optimization, and Analysis, including Numerical Analysis, Functional Analysis, Dynamical Systems, and Stochastic Analysis. My current research interests are in Dynamical Systems and its applications in Mathematical Biology and Quantum Mechanics. I’m looking forward to a great and productive time with the CCAM!
The Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematicians (SIAM) Fellows program honors SIAM members who are recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to Applied Mathematics. Professor Anitescu was recognized for his contributions to the modeling, theory, and practice of optimization. He joins other CCAM members, Professors Ridg Scott, Mary Silber, and Takis Souganidis, in the SIAM fellows program.
First year CAM PhD student June Wu was awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowship for the 2018-2019 academic year. The fellowship is administered by the Department of Defense and is highly competitive with a success rate of 6%. As a recipient of the fellowship, June receives 3 years of funding, sponsored by the Army Research Office (ARO). Her research interests lie at the intersection of geometric data analysis, applied mathematics and high-performance computing. June came to U. Chicago after receiving a M.S. in Scientific Computing and a B.A. in Mathematics from the Courant Institute, New York University.
Greg Lawler, the George Wells Beadle Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics, and a member of CCAM, is a 2019 recipient of the prestigious Wolf Prize in mathematics for his "comprehensive and pioneering research on erased loops and random walks". The Wolf Prize ceremony will take place in Jerusalem this May.
The deadline of January 15th, 2019 to submit admissions applications for Fall 2019 to the PhD and MS programs in Computational and Applied Mathematics at University of Chicago has come and passed. At this time, the application portal has closed and we are no longer accepting applications. We thank all applicants that have expressed interest in our programs and submitted their applications and necessary accompanying documents. The CAM Admissions Committee will begin reviewing applications immediately. If you have submitted your application or If you have any questions regarding admission, please send your inquiry to ccam-admissions@galton.uchicago.edu.
Prof. Lek-Heng Lim
has been awarded the prestigious Hans Schneider Prize for 2019 by the International Linear Algebra Society (ILAS). The Society acknowledges the best scholarship in this area of mathematical research triennially. Lek-Heng will be formally presented with his award at the ILAS’s 23rd annual meeting in June 2020 in Galway, Ireland, with the National University of Ireland, Galway, sponsoring the meeting of mathematicians. Congratulations to Prof. Lim on his award and ongoing research in applied mathematics!The University of Chicago Applied Math Club (UCAMC) is an undergraduate club which provides a platform for students interested in applications of mathematics and statistics, such as in economics (price theory and game theory), computer science (complexity theory and data science/machine learning), physics and biology. We hold meetings where professors and graduate students present on their work, and where corporations (e.g. hedge funds and cybersecurity firms) discuss the way they use mathematics. For more information please visit https://ucamc.github.io/.
Justin Finkel, a second year student enrolled in the CAM PhD program, was recently interviewed and profiled by the Physical Sciences Division. Click here: https://physical-sciences.uchicago.edu/page/justin-finkel to read the interview and learn more about one of our outstanding students.
Dr. Daniel Sanz-Alonso is a new assistant professor in the Department of Statistics, and Dr. Rebecca Willett is a new professor in the departments of statistics and computer science. Both will be developing new courses for the CAM PhD program, and expect to advise CAM PhD students.
Professor Sanz-Alonso’s academic interests include data assimilation, inverse problems, machine learning, Monte Carlo methods, and uncertainty quantification. His research has been published in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)/American Statistical Association (ASA) Journal on Uncertainty Quantification, the SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, Communications in Mathematical Sciences, Inverse Problems, Statistical Science, and Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena. Daniel completed a licenciatura degree in mathematics from the University of Valladolid in Spain, followed by a PhD in mathematics and statistics from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. Most recently, Prof. Sanz-Alonso was a postdoctoral research associate in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, and a member of its Data Science Initiative.
Professor Rebecca Willett joins the University of Chicago faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar, and Fellow of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include signal processing, machine learning, and large-scale data science. In particular, she has studied methods to leverage low-dimensional models in a variety of contexts, including when data are high-dimensional, contain missing entries, are subject to constrained sensing or communication resources, correspond to point processes, or arise in ill-conditioned inverse problems. This work lies at the intersection of high-dimensional statistics, inverse problems in imaging and network science (including compressed sensing), learning theory, algebraic geometry, optical engineering, nonlinear approximation theory, statistical signal processing, and optimization theory. Becca's group has made contributions both in the mathematical foundations of signal processing and machine learning and in their application to a variety of real-world problems. She has active collaborations with researchers in astronomy, materials science, microscopy, electronic health record analysis, cognitive neuroscience, precision agriculture, biochemistry, and atmospheric science.
The Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics is excited to announce that we have launched a new Master’s degree program and applications are now being accepted! See the full announcement courtesy of the Physical Science Division here: https://physicalsciences.uchicago.edu/news/article/uchicago-psd-announces-new-masters-program-for-computational-and-applied-ma/
For more details about the program, please visit the Master’s in Computational and Applied Mathematics (MCAM) website here: https://voices.uchicago.edu/cammasters/.
Prospective PhD students interested in applying for admission for Fall 2019 to Computational and Applied Mathematics at University of Chicago can now do so. You may CLICK HERE to access the online application. The deadline to submit your application for admission, along with all necessary documentation is January 15th, 2019. For more information regarding admission requirements, please visit here. If you have any questions regarding admission, please send your inquiry to ccam-admissions@galton.uchicago.edu.
Congratulations to Dr. Wenjia
Jing and Dr. Ke Ye on being selected for the 2017 Thousand
Talents Program for distinguished young scholars in China. Wenjia Jing
was a Dickson Instructor advised by CAM faculty Takis Souganidis and
before that a PhD student at Columbia University advised by CAM faculty
Guillaume Bal. He is now an assistant professor at Tsinghua University. Ke
Ye was a Dickson Instructor and CAM postdoc advised by CAM faculty
Lek-Heng Lim. He is now an associate professor at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS) and has also been selected for the CAS's Hundred
Talents Program. Further information may be found in Chinese here, here,
and here.
The Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTI Chicago) and the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics (CCAM) at University of Chicago will jointly organize a two-week Introduction to Machine Learning Summer School as part of an NSF funded Research Training Group (RTG) grant. It will take place from June 18, 2018--June 29, 2018 at TTI Chicago. Please refer to our webpage for further information and application details.
Justin Finkel was recently selected for a highly competitive Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. 
Justin’s research goals include developing and extending more flexible data-driven methods to analyze and forecast climate dynamics. As a first year PhD student, Justin has been pursuing an interdisciplinary line of study, augmenting the CAM courses with courses in geophysical fluid dynamics. The DOE CSG Fellowship will support Justin’s study for 4 years, and provide him with additional opportunities such as a 12 week practicum experience at a DOE lab. Justin came to U.Chicago after undergraduate study at Washington University in St. Louis where he majored in both mathematics and physics.
Aaron Chen has been selected for a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. This fellowship will support his applied mathematics research for the next three years. In 2017, Aaron was a recipient of a research grant from the University of Chicago’s Physical Sciences Division, which was made possible through the Neubauer Family Initiative for Graduate Education. Aaron has broad interests in both mathematics and computer science, and came to U.Chicago after undergraduate study in mathematics at Cornell University.
Congratulations to Justin and Aaron for these honors and also these exciting opportunities.
The deadline of January 15th, 2018 to submit admissions applications for Fall 2018 to Computational and Applied Mathematics at University of Chicago has come and passed. At this time, the application portal has closed and we are no longer accepting applications. We thank all applicants that have expressed interest in our program and submitted their applications and necessary accompanying documents. The CAM Admissions Committee will begin reviewing applications immediately. If you have submitted your application or If you have any questions regarding admission, please send your inquiry to ccam-admissions@galton.uchicago.edu.
Prospective PhD students interested in applying for admission for Fall 2018 to Computational and Applied Mathematics at the University of Chicago can now do so. You may CLICK HERE to access the online application. The deadline to submit your application for admission, along with all necessary documentation is January 15th, 2018. For more information regarding admission requirements, please visit here. If you have any questions regarding admission, please send your inquiry to ccam-admissions@galton.uchicago.edu.
The Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics is partly supported by an NSF Research Training Groups in the Mathematical Sciences grant from NSF's Division of Mathematical Sciences. This grant recognizes and supports many of the activities of the CAM. One of those activities includes the support of students and the opportunity to allow students to present their research to one another, faculty and staff. For more information about the NSF RTG Grant, please visit here. To see the Schedule of Student Seminar presenters, please visit here.
Professors Lek-Heng Lim and Jonathan Weare are acknowledged in the SIAM Review, a publication of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, for their article "Fast Randomized Iteration: Diffusion Monte Carlo through the Lens of Numerical Linear Algebra."
See the excerpt from the SIAM Review here: http://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/17N974379
(Left to right: Rebecca Kotsonis, Robert Webber, Justin Finkel, Aaron Chen, Zhisheng Xiao, Ruiyi Yang)
Last week, the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics welcomed its first cohort of Ph.D. students to campus with a host of orientation sessions and activities. Students had the opportunity to meet with one another, some for the first time, tour the campus, meet with faculty and staff, including their advisors, and have lunch with the Director of the Committee. We are very excited to welcome our new and returning students and look forward working with each of them throughout the academic year.
We are excited to have Zellencia Harris join the CAM team as our Student Affairs Administrator. Zellencia will be working closely with our CAM PhD students, supporting them with things such as orientation activities, registration, financial aid, and addressing any student concerns or resolving any student issues that may arise.
Zellencia comes to the University of Chicago from DePaul University, with over 7 years of experience working in Student Affairs and Student Support Services. She also completed her Master's Degree in Multicultural Communication and Education at DePaul University. Zellencia is a native Chicagoan, originally from the south side Avalon Park neighborhood. Some of her hobbies include cooking, singing, and swimming. We are happy to have Zellencia join us. Please feel free to stop by her office to say hello in Jones 116B!
We're proud to award Lek-Heng Lim, University of Chicago, with the James H. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing in 2017. This prize, established in 1979, is given for research in, or other contributions to, numerical analysis and scientific computing during the six years preceding the award. The purpose of the prize is to stimulate younger contributors and to help them in their careers. The prize will be awarded at the 2017 SIAM Annual Meeting in July.
Q: Why are you excited about winning the prize?
A: Looking at the list of past winners, I am deeply honored and humbled that the prize committee decided that I belong to this list. Usually when I get an email from Nick (Higham), he is either seeking a referee report or conveying one; but his last email (informing me of the prize) came as a very pleasant surprise. I am extremely grateful to the people who kindly nominated me.
Q: What does your research mean to the public?
The University of Chicago's Division of the Physical Sciences is launching a PhD program in computational and applied mathematics, part of an expansion into a field at the intersection of big data and scientific discovery.
The program, which has started accepting applications, has engaged faculty from numerous departments, including statistics, computer science, mathematics, neurobiology, human genetics, and astronomy and astrophysics. It follows the division's addition of an undergraduate major in computational and applied mathematics and the hiring of new faculty focused on the interdisciplinary field.
"The University's expanding focus on computational and applied mathematics provides a training ground for a new generation of scholars who will harness data in new and innovative ways to produce discoveries across the sciences," said Edward "Rocky" Kolb, dean of the division and the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics. "The doctoral program will ensure that massive data sets and powerful computational algorithms to which scientists increasingly have access produce rigorous and correct results."
