Maheshwari Colloquium
The Maheshwari Colloquium was endowed in 2012 in honor of Man Mohan and Asha Devi Maheshwari by their son, University at Albany alumni Raj Maheshwari, ’83.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Yunlong Feng, Michael Lesnick, Antun Milas, and Felix Ye.
Eleventh Annual Maheshwari Colloquium
On Friday, April 26th, 2024, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany will host its eleventh Maheshwari Colloquium in LC04.
The talk is from 3-4 p.m. Refreshments will be served beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Speaker: Kathryn Hess, Professor of Mathematics at EPFL
Title: A Topologist’s Adventures in Neuroscience
Abstract: The brain of each of us is composed of hundreds of billions of neurons (or nerve cells,) linked by hundreds of trillions of synapses, which transmit electrical signals from one neuron to another. In response to a stimulus, waves of electrical activity pass through the network of neurons, processing the incoming signal. Tools provided by the field of mathematics known as algebraic topology enable us to detect and describe the rich structure hidden in this dynamic tapestry. In this talk, I'll take you on a mathematical mystery tour of what topology reveals about how the brain processes information, based on collaborations with the Blue Brain Project at EPFL.
About Kathryn Hess: Kathryn Hess received her PhD in algebraic topology from MIT and held positions at the universities of Stockholm, Nice, and Toronto before moving to the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she is now full professor of mathematics and life sciences. Her research focuses on algebraic topology and its applications, primarily in the life sciences, but also in materials science. In her work in applied topology, she has elaborated methods based on topological data analysis for high-throughput screening of nanoporous crystalline materials, classification and synthesis of neuron morphologies, and classification of neuronal network dynamics. She has also developed and applied innovative topological approaches to network theory.
Previous Maheshwari Colloquia
2023, Speaker: Ming Yuan
On Friday, April 14th, 2023, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany hosted its tenth Maheshwari Colloquium, endowed in honor of Man Mohan and Asha Devi Maheshwari by Raj Maheshwari, ’83.
Speaker: Ming Yuan, Professor of Statistics at Columbia University
Title: Spectral Learning for High Dimensional Tensors
Abstract: Matrix perturbation bounds developed by Weyl, Davis, Kahan and Wedin and others play a central role in many statistical and machine learning problems. I shall discuss some of the recent progresses in developing similar bounds for higher order tensors. I will highlight the intriguing differences from matrices, and explore their implications in spectral learning problems.
Ming Yuan is a Professor of Statistics and an Associate Director of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. He was previously a Senior Investigator in Virology at Morgridge Institute for Research and a Professor of Statistics at University of Wisconsin at Madison, and prior to that Coca-Cola Junior Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research and teaching interests lie broadly in statistics and its interface with other quantitative and computational fields such as optimization, machine learning, computational biology, and financial engineering. He has served as the program secretary of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics (IMS), and a member of the advisory board for the Quality, Statistics and Reliability section of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He was also a co-Editor of The Annals of Statistics and has served on numerous editorial boards. He was named a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Theoretical Research at ETH Zurich (2019), a Medallion Lecturer of IMS (2018), and a recipient of the Leo Breiman Junior Researcher Award (2017; American Statistical Association), the Guy Medal in Bronze (2014; Royal Statistical Society), and CAREER Award (2009; US National Science Foundation).
2022, Speaker: Mihai Putinar
On Friday, April 15, 2022, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany hosted its ninth Maheshwari Colloquium, endowed in honor of Man Mohan and Asha Devi Maheshwari by Raj Maheshwari, ’83.
Speaker: Mihai Putinar, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at Santa Barbara
Lecture title: “The Legacy of Carleman's Doctoral Dissertation”
4:00 p.m. on Zoom
Mihai Putinar is Professor in the Mathematics Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Transylvanian by origin, he is now an international servant and ambassador of mathematics. With prior contributions to complex analytic geometry, real algebra, and moment problems, his recent works are related to positivity preservers and the structure of non-selfadjoint operators, mainly touching spectral theory, inverse problems, and approximation theory. He is the author of four books and more than two hundred research articles. He was a Humboldt Fellow and a Gambrinus Fellow. Over the course of his career, he has been awarded prizes including the Simion Stoilow Prize of the Romanian Academy (1987) and the Romanian National Order of Merit with the rank of Knight (2011).
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Yunlong Feng, Michael Lesnick, Antun Milas, and Felix Ye.
2019, Speaker: Ken Ono
On Friday, April 12, 2019, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its eighth Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Ken Ono, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics at Emory University, and the title of his lecture was:
“Why does Ramanujan, ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity,’ matter?”
4:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 23
Refreshments served from just outside the auditorium.
Ken Ono is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University. He earned his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and his PhD from UCLA. He has served as a chaired professor at Penn State, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Emory University. His research, which spans over 170 publications with appearances in the Annals of Mathematics and Inventions, has been recognized with numerous awards including an NSF CAREER grant, a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, a Presidential Early Career Award from former President Bill Clinton, a Guggenheim Fellowship, election as an Inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012 and as Vice President in 2018. In addition to his talents as a researcher, Ken Ono is a renowned expositor with recognition as the MAA George Polya Distinguished Lecturer and recent winner of the Prose Award for Best Scholarly Book in Mathematics. His passion for developing and sharing the ideas of Ramanujan traces from his earliest research work to his recent role as technical consultant on the film “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marius Beceanu, Yunglong Feng, and Antun Milas.
2018, Speaker: Vic Reiner
On Friday, May 4, 2018, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its seventh Maheshwari Colloquium, endowed in honor of Man Mohan and Asha Devi Maheshwari by Raj Maheshwari, ’83.
Speaker: Vic Reiner, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota
Lecture title: “Sandpiles and Representation Theory”
3:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 23
Refreshments served from 2:15 p.m. just outside the auditorium.
Victor Reiner is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota. He earned his A.B. in Mathematics from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Richard Stanley. He has received several honors and awards, which include being a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (since 2012), a University of Minnesota Distinguished McKnight Professor (since 2003), and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. He is the author of over 100 publications on combinatorics and its connections with fields such as algebra, geometry, and topology. He has served as thesis advisor to 16 doctoral students, several of whom have become well-known names in algebraic combinatorics, and also mentored around 100 Master's students, undergraduate students, and postdoctoral researchers. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics, an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Mathematical Society, and a member of the editorial boards of several other journals. He has been recently elected as a Member-at-Large of the American Mathematical Society Council.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marius Beceanu, Yunglong Feng, Antun Milas, and Rongwei Yang.
2017, Speaker: Robert Ghrist
On Friday, April 21, 2017, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its sixth Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Robert Ghrist, Professor of Mathematics and Electrical/Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Topological Inference from Data”
4:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 4.
Refreshments served from 3:15 p.m. just outside the auditorium.
Watch Video: Engineering in 100 Seconds by Robert Ghrist
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marco Varisco, Elizabeth Munch, Joshua Isralowitz, and Ivana Alexandrova.
2016, Speaker: Michael Christ
On Friday, April 15, 2016, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its fifth Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Michael Christ, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley
“Sharpened Inequalities for the Fourier Transform via Additive Combinatorics”
4:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 19
Refreshments served from 3:15 p.m. just outside the auditorium.
Michael Christ is Professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley. He earned his B.S. from Harvey Mudd College and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and has served on the faculties of Princeton University and UCLA. He has received several honors and awards, including an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Fellowship in 1986, the 1997 Bergman Prize from the AMS, a Miller Research Professorship for 2000–2001, and a Distinguished Teaching Award by the Office of Educational Development at UC Berkeley in 2004. He has been an invited lecturer twice at the International Congress of Mathematicians, first in Kyoto in 1990 and then in Berlin in 1998. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His principal areas of research are harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, and complex analysis in several variables.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marco Varisco, Ivana Alexandrova, Joshua Isralowitz, and Elizabeth Munch.
2015, Speaker: Jill Pipher
On Friday, April 24, 2015, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its fourth Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Jill Pipher, Professor of Mathematics at Brown University and Director of ICERM, the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics.
“The Mathematics of Lattice-Based Cryptography”
4:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 19
Refreshments served from 3:15 p.m. just outside the auditorium.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marco Varisco, Joshua Isralowitz, Elizabeth Munch, and Ivana Alexandrova.
2014, Speaker: Ronald G. Douglas
On Friday, April 11, 2014, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its third Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Ronald G. Douglas from Texas A&M University
“Complex Geometry and Operator Theory”
Abstract. About thirty years ago, the author and M. Cowen introduced an approach to the study of certain classes of operators on Hilbert space using techniques and ideas from complex geometry. Since then many authors have studied and developed these techniques to help solve a variety of problems.
The operators involved are defined on Hilbert spaces of holomorphic functions, on domains in both one and several complex variables. In this talk we explore the techniques obtaining some recent results, emphasizing concrete examples, while recalling the setup in complex geometry involving the Chern connection and its curvature. In some cases this structure serves as a convenient language while in others it provides insight into the problem and methods to solve it.
4:00 p.m. in Lecture Center 1
Refreshments served from 3:15 p.m. just outside the auditorium, and a light reception after the lecture.
For more information, please feel free to contact the organizers, Marco Varisco, Joshua Isralowitz, and Ivana Alexandrova.
2013, Speaker: Richard P. Stanley
On Friday, April 12, 2013, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted its second Maheshwari Colloquium.
Speaker: Richard P. Stanley from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Alternating Permutations”
found by Désiré André in 1879. We will discuss this result and how it leads to the subject of “combinatorial trigonometry.” We will then survey some further aspects of alternating permutations, including some other objects that are counted by En, the use of the representation theory of the symmetric group to count certain classes of alternating permutations, and the statistical properties of the longest alternating subsequence of a random permutation.
3:30 p.m. in the D’Ambra Auditorium of the Life Sciences Research Building.
Refreshments served from 2:45 p.m. and a light reception at 5 p.m., both just outside the auditorium.
For more information, please feel free to contact the organizers, Cristian Lenart, Marco Varisco, and Joshua Isralowitz.
2012, Speaker: Michael J. Hopkins
On Friday, April 20, 2012, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, SUNY, hosted the inaugural Maheshwari Colloquium.
The speaker will be Michael J. Hopkins from Harvard University, and the title of his lecture will be:
“Symmetry, Homotopy, and Smooth Manifolds.”
3:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 4
Refreshments served from 2:45 p.m. and a reception and dinner after the colloquium.
For more information, please feel free to contact the organizer, Marco Varisco.
