Some basic concepts in mathlib and the dependencies between them

Computational proof assistants now make it possible to develop global, digital mathematical libraries with theorems that are fully checked by computer. This summer school will introduce students to the new technology and the ideas behind it, and will encourage them to think about the goals and benefits of formalized mathematics. Students will learn to use the Lean interactive proof assistant, and by the end of the session they will be in a position to formalize mathematics on their own, join the Lean community, and contribute to its mathematical library.

The MSRI-UP summer program is designed to serve a diverse group of undergraduate students who would like to conduct research in the mathematical sciences.

In 2023, MSRI-UP will focus on Topological Data Analysis. The research program will be led by Dr. Jose Perea, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University.

A basic enzymatic mechanism

The aim of the course is to learn how tools from algebraic geometry (in particular, from computational and real algebraic geometry) can be used to analyze standard models in molecular biology. Particularly, these models are key ingredients in the development of Systems and Synthetic biology, two active research areas focusing on understanding, modifying, and implementing the design principles of living systems.

We will focus on the mathematical aspects of the methods, and exemplify and apply the theory to real networks, thereby introducing the participants to relevant problems and mechanisms in molecular biology. As a counterpart, however, the participants will also see how this field has in the past challenged current methods, mainly in the realm of real algebraic geometry, and has given rise to new general and purely theoretical results on polynomial equations. We will end our lectures with an overview of open questions in both fields.

This two week school will focus on spectral theory of periodic, almost-periodic, and random operators.  The main aim of this school is to teach the students who work in one of these areas, methods used in parallel problems, explain the similarities between all these areas and show them the `big picture'.

This school is associated with an upcoming research program at MSRI under the same title. The goal of the school is to equip students unfamiliar with these topics with the mathematical and theoretical computer science toolbox that forms the foundation of market and mechanism design.

Soap bubble: equilibrium solution of the rescaled mean curvature flow and constant curvature surface.

This graduate summer school will introduce students to two important and inter-related fields of differential geometry: geometric flows and minimal surfaces.

Geometric flows have had far reaching influences on numerous branches of mathematics and other scientific disciplines. An outstanding example is the completion of Hamilton’s Ricci flow program by Perelman, leading to the resolution of the Poincare conjecture and Thurston’s geometrization conjecture for 3-manifolds. In this part of the summer school, students will be guided through basic topics and ideas in the study of geometric flows.

Since Penrose used variations of volume to formulate and study black holes in general relativity (in his Nobel prize-winning work), the intriguing connections between minimal surfaces and general relativity have been a strong driving force for the modern developments of both research areas. This part of the summer school will introduce students to the basic theory of minimal submanifolds and its applications in Riemannian geometry and general relativity.

The curriculum of this program will be accessible and will have a broad appeal to graduate students from a variety of mathematical areas, introducing some of the latest developments in each area and the remaining open problems therein, while simultaneously emphasizing their synergy.

The overarching goal of this summer school is to expose the students both to modern forms of unsupervised learning — in the form of geometrical and topological data analysis — and to supervised learning — in the form of (deep) neural networks applied to regression/classification problems. The organizers have opted for a lighter exposure to a broader range of topics. Using the metaphor of a meal, we are offering 2 + 2 samplers — geometry and topology for data analysis + theoretical and practical deep learning — rather than 1 + 1 main dishes. The main goal, thus, is to inspire the students to learn more about one or several of the topics covered in the school.

The expected learning outcomes for students attending the school are the following:

1. An introduction to how concepts and tools from geometry and topology can be leveraged to perform data analysis in situations where the data are not labeled.

2. An introduction to recent and ongoing theoretical and methodological/practical developments in the use of neural networks for data analysis (deep learning).

Schur quartic x 4−xy3 = z 4−zu3 and several of the 64 lines that it contains

Derived algebraic geometry is an ‘update’ of algebraic geometry using ‘derived’ (roughly speaking, homological) techniques. This requires recasting the very foundations of the field: rings have to be replaced by differential graded algebras (or other forms of derived rings), categories by higher categories, and so on. The result is a powerful set of new tools, useful both within algebraic geometry and in related areas. The school serves as an introduction to these techniques, focusing on their applications.

The school is built around two related courses on geometric (‘derived spaces’) and categorical (‘derived categories’) aspects of the theory. Our goal is to explain the key ideas and concepts, while trying to keep technicalities to a minimum.

The goal of the summer school is for the students to first become familiar with the concept of concentration of measure in different settings (Euclidean, Riemannian and discrete), and the main open problems surrounding it. The students will later become familiar with the proof techniques that involve the different types of localization and obtain expertise on the ways to apply the localization techniques. After attending the graduate school, the students are expected to have the necessary background that would give them a chance to both conduct research around open problems in concentration of measure, find new applications to existing localization techniques and perhaps also develop new localization techniques.

This summer school will introduce graduate students to sketching-based approaches to computational linear and multi-linear algebra. Sketching here refers to a set of techniques for compressing a matrix, to one with fewer rows, or columns, or entries, usually via various kinds of random linear maps. We will discuss matrix computations, tensor algebras, and such sketching techniques, together with their applications and analysis.

Several executions of a 3-dimensional sumcheck protocol with a random order of directions (thanks to Dev Ojha for creating the diagram)

Proofs are at the foundations of mathematics. Viewed through the lens of theoretical computer science, verifying the correctness of a mathematical proof is a fundamental computational task. Indeed, the P versus NP problem, which deals precisely with the complexity of proof verification, is one of the most important open problems in all of mathematics.

The complexity-theoretic study of proof verification has led to exciting reenvisionings of mathematical proofs. For example, probabilistically checkable proofs (PCPs) admit local-to-global structure that allows verifying a proof by reading only a minuscule portion of it. As another example, interactive proofs allow for verification via a conversation between a prover and a verifier, instead of the traditional static sequence of logical statements. The study of such proof systems has drawn upon deep mathematical tools to derive numerous applications to the theory of computation and beyond.

In recent years, such probabilistic proofs received much attention due to a new motivation, delegation of computation, which is the emphasis of this summer school. This paradigm admits ultra-fast protocols that allow one party to check the correctness of the computation performed by another, untrusted, party. These protocols have even been realized within recently-deployed technology, for example, as part of cryptographic constructions known as succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs).

This summer school will provide an introduction to the field of probabilistic proofs and the beautiful mathematics behind it, as well as prepare students for conducting cutting-edge research in this area.

The Connections Workshop will welcome participants of all genders and identities, with the scope of fostering a sense of community, amplifying voices of those who identify as women, and providing avenues to allies to be helpful. The workshop particularly aims to increase visibility among junior women in fields adjacent to the topics of the general program, including but not limited to game-theoretic fairness, mechanism design, partition, networks, redistricting, and fairness in machine learning. This two-day workshop will include keynote speakers, lightning talks from participants, panel discussions on career advancement, breakout sessions by research areas, opportunities for networking, and other mentoring activities.

Image generated by an AI process.

In this workshop, we will bring together speakers who are engaged in the active areas of scholarship around algorithmic fairness, the disparate impacts of facially impartial systems, and the ways that algorithms can be enmeshed in governance and decisionmaking—for better and worse.  The speakers will introduce themes that will be picked up throughout the semester program on "Algorithms, Fairness, and Equity."

The Connections Workshop will consist of invited talks from leading researchers at all career stages in the field of market design.  Particular attention will be paid to real-world applications.  There will also be an AMA focused on career paths with highly visible individuals in the field, and a social event intended to help workshop attendees network with each other.

This workshop is multifaceted. In addition to familiarizing graduate students and other junior participants to the topics of the program, the workshop will also reinforce common ground and language among computer scientists and economists and provide an on-ramp introduction for interested mathematicians.

This workshop is about the recent MIP*=RE result from quantum computational complexity, and the resulting resolution of the Connes embedding problem from the theory of von Neumann algebras. MIP*=RE connects the disparate areas of computational complexity theory, quantum information, operator algebras, and approximate representation theory. The aim of this workshop is to bridge this divide, by giving an in-depth exposition of the techniques used in the proof of MIP*=RE, and highlighting perspectives on the MIP*=RE result from operator algebras and approximate representation theory. In particular, this workshop will highlight connections with group stability, something that has not been covered in previous workshops. In addition to increasing understanding of the MIP*=RE proof, we hope that this will open up further applications of the ideas behind MIP*=RE in operator algebras.

This workshop will look at the idea of fairness and neutrality in algorithms and decision-making. How it relates to the idea of randomization and how randomization can be employed in the pursuit of neutrality and fairness. The goal is both to bring together state-of-the-art research and explore the implications and limitations of the deployment in the real world.

The workshop is aimed at exploring core subjects in the field of market and mechanism design, such as the design of non-convex auction markets, the design of matching markets with preferences, algorithmic mechanism design, and learning in games. These topics are interrelated and deeply rooted in mathematics and computer science. Each day of the 4-day workshop is devoted to one of these topics with talks by leading scholars in the field and panel discussions on major open problems.

Blood flow and structure displacement in an Aortic Abdominal Aneurysm

This workshop will focus on the coupled dynamical interaction between fluids and elastic/poroelastic structures, with an emphasis on the most recent and cutting-edge mathematical advances in deterministic and stochastic fluid-structure interaction. The goal of this workshop is to bring together a diverse group of mathematicians in the fields of analysis, modeling, numerics, stochastics, and real-world applications in order to showcase an interdisciplinary approach to the study of coupled fluid-structure systems. A major component of this workshop will be to encourage active participation of early career researchers, such as graduate students and postdocs, and foster synergistic collaboration with established leaders in the field.

Emmy Noether (1882-1935), a prominent founder of commutative ring theory

This two-day workshop will feature the work of mathematicians in commutative algebra who identify as women or another marginalized gender. The talks will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program. This meeting aims to support young researchers. The format will include plenary talks, poster sessions, panel discussions, as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections.  The workshop is open to all mathematicians, and members of historically excluded groups and identities are especially encouraged to attend.

Fractal behavior of local cohomology. For details, see arXiv:2210.03656 by Gao and Raicu

The Introductory Workshop will feature lecture series devoted to some recent breakthrough results in commutative algebra, and to new developments in core areas of the field.  It will also highlight links to other areas such as arithmetic geometry, representation theory, noncommutative geometry, and singularity theory.

This two-day workshop will feature the work of mathematicians in noncommutative geometry who identify as women or another marginalized gender. The talks will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program. This meeting aims to support young researchers.

The workshop will focus on recent developments in noncommutative algebraic geometry including Derived Algebraic Geometry, Categorical and Noncommutative Resolutions, Deformation Theory, and Enumerative Geometry.

The format will include plenary talks, a poster session, panel discussions, as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections in noncommutative geometry. The workshop is open to all mathematicians, and members of historically excluded groups and identities are especially encouraged to attend.

A paper fortune teller illustrating the Atiyah flop.

This introductory workshop will consist of a combination of minicourses addressing core topics in noncommutative algebraic geometry and research lectures describing recent developments in the field.  The workshop will focus on subjects connected to algebraic geometry, category theory, and mirror symmetry such as categorical and noncommutative resolutions, deformation theory, derived categories in algebraic geometry, derived algebraic geometry, infinity categories, and enumerative geometry.

The affine line arrangement of type C with different lattices and toric arrangements arising from it.

This workshop brings together experts from different areas to discuss and foster collaboration on several topics of current interest related to Artin groups such as the K(π, 1) conjecture, hyperplane arrangements and abelian arrangements, combinatorial structures associated with dual Coxeter systems, and complexes of nonpositive curvature.

Optical illusion staircase

This workshop will give an overview of recent developments in non-commutative algebraic geometry, including NC projective AG, NC resolutions, semiorthogonal decompositions, enhancements of derived categories, and connections to homological mirror symmetry, to enumerative AG, to moduli spaces and to birational geometry. It will in particular focus on speakers who have built new bridges between these topics.

Many long-standing conjectures in commutative algebra have been solved in recent years, often through the introduction of new methods that are quickly becoming central to the field.  This workshop will bring together a wide array of researchers in commutative algebra and related fields, with the goal of forging new connections among topics, and with a particular emphasis on transformative new methods.

This workshop will have a view to the future of a broad spectrum of topics including

• structure and classification of finite dimensional Lie algebras and superalgebras in characteristic p
• structure of infinite dimensional Lie algebras and their representations
• deformation theory of algebras, double constructions and elemental Lie algebras
• diagram algebras and combinatorial representation theory
• algebraic combinatorics of groups of Lie type:characters, Schur-Weyl duality, Bratteli diagrams, and McKay correspondences
• quantum groups and crystal bases, particularly for superalgebras and affine algebras
• examples of fusion categories arising from representations of Drinfeld doubles and other algebras
• cohomology for finite tensor categories with applications to its underlying geometry

This meeting will feature principal contributors in these areas in a celebration of the work of Georgia Benkart. With the same focus and tenacity that Georgia always had, we will strive to provide a conference full of beautiful mathematics, incredible inspiration, and the warmth of Georgia’s welcoming personality to our field and our community.

This summer school will familiarize students with the basic problems of the mathematical theory of Euclidean quantum fields. The lectures will introduce some of its prominent models and analyze them via the so called “stochastic quantization” methods, involving recently developed stochastic and PDE techniques. This is an area which is highly interdisciplinary combining ideas ranging from the theory of partial differential equations, to stochastic analysis, to mathematical physics. Our goal is to bring together students which are maybe familiar with some but not all of these subjects and teach them how to integrate these different tools to solve cutting-edge problems of Euclidean quantum field theory.

AI-generated interpretation of a random network

This two-day workshop will bring together researchers from discrete mathematics, probability theory, theoretical computer science, and statistics to explore topics at their interface. The focus will be on probability and statistics of random discrete structures, as well as their applications, including in computer science and physical systems. The workshop will celebrate academic and gender diversity, bringing together women and men at junior and senior levels of their careers from mathematics, physics, and computer science.

Visualization of a network constructed using simple probabilistic rules, showing the emergence of hubs and other macroscopic network phenomenon. From https://graph-tool.skewed.de

Networks, graph driven algorithms, and dynamics on graphs such as epidemics, random walks and centrality measures all play a major role, both in our daily lives as well as many scientific and engineering disciplines. This introductory workshop will bring together experts and junior researchers in combinatorics, probability, and statistics to share a broad vision of major challenges and objectives, with a primary focus on models of random graphs and their limits, network inference, dynamic processes on networks and algorithms and optimization on random structures. 

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together promising early-career researchers in extremal combinatorics who are women or from underrepresented minorities so that they can meet with, forge connections with, and be inspired by the leading figures in the area. The workshop will include lectures, time for collaborative research, and an informal panel discussion session among female and minority researchers on career issues.

This workshop will feature leading experts in several major areas of graph theory, including extremal, probabilistic and structural aspects of the field. Introductory lectures will form an important part of the program, providing background and motivation, and aimed at a general mathematical audience. Complementing these, research talks will share exciting recent developments in graph theory.

In recent years techniques from harmonic analysis viz. projection theorems have found striking applications in finitary analysis on homogenous spaces. Such quantitative results have many potential applications to analytic number theory. This workshop will bring together researchers in these areas to further explore these connections.

Recovering communities in a network

In a growing number of applications, one needs to analyze and interpret data coming from massive networks. The statistical problems arising from such applications lead to important mathematical challenges: building novel probabilistic models, understanding the possibilities and limitations for statistical detection and inference, designing efficient algorithms, and understanding the inherent limitations of fast algorithms. The workshop will bring together leading researchers in combinatorial statistics, machine learning, and random graphs in the hope of cross-fertilization of ideas.

Commutative Algebra has seen an extraordinary development in the last few years. Long standing conjectures have been proven and new connections to different areas of mathematics have been built.This summer graduate school will consist of three mini-courses (5 lectures each) on fundamental topics in commutative algebra that are not covered in the standard courses. Each course will be accompanied by problem sessions focused on research. Five general colloquium-style lectures will be given by invited scholars who will also attend the school and help with afternoon research activities. 

2023 Pilot Program: The goal of MAY-UP is to provide students with a glimpse into Linear Algebra; and the ways in which this topic may arise both theoretically and computationally in their future studies. Material will include an introduction to matrices as well as basic matrix operations. We will also provide students with introductory programming skills in Python, including development environment setup and matrix manipulations via code.

The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly MSRI, celebrates May 12 with a panel discussion and social event open to all on the topic "Pathways in Mathematics". This is a hybrid event taking place on Zoom and in person at SLMath and satellite institutions.

A genus 2 curve over the reals and various p-adics. Image created by Prof. Jennifer Balakrishnan .

In recent years, a number of techniques have led to outstanding progress on Lang-Vojta conjectures, such as the Subspace Theorem, p-adic approaches to finiteness, and modular methods. Similarly, spectacular progress has been achieved on unlikely intersection conjectures thanks to new methods and tools, such as height formulas for special points, connections to model theory, refined counting results, and new theorems of Ax-Shanuel type (bi-algebraic geometry). The goal of this workshop is to create the opportunity for these two groups to interact, to share their techniques, to update on the most recent progress, and to attack the outstanding open questions in the field.

In 2022-23, SLMath (formerly MSRI) celebrates 40 years of serving the mathematical sciences community through our topic-focused programs and workshops, and the general public via our national and global outreach initiatives. Director Tatiana Toro and Deputy Director Hélène Barcelo invite the community to join us for a symposium to reflect upon these four decades of extraordinary activity.  This celebration will feature special guest speakers, panel discussions and an evening reception.

This event is free and open to the public. To register, log into MSRI.org or create an account. Funding for attendance is extremely limited. Click below to expand the event description and schedule.

The workshop Critical Issues in Mathematics Education: Mentoring for Equity aims to reach a broad audience of faculty and students in postsecondary mathematical sciences. Participants will learn about the evidence base for effective mentoring, with a focus on culturally responsive mentoring that supports all students and faculty along their mathematical paths. The workshop includes a combination of discussion of research evidence, review and adaptation of practical tools, and explicit training in effective mentoring, including how to bring these tools back to participants’ home institutions. The workshop intertwines objectives of increasing participants’ knowledge of the scholarship on effective mentoring, and engages participants in interactive activities to develop tangible skills as mentors and as mentor-trainers. Participants should come with a growth mindset, prepared to reflect on their experiences as mentors and mentees, and actively contribute to activities that build skills for implementing best mentoring practices.  This workshop will cultivate local and national mentoring communities that bring effective tools and strategies to mentoring, so that mentees can persist and thrive in research, teaching, education, and throughout their education and careers. One focus will be on addressing the individual mentoring needs of all faculty and students, including those who have been historically-marginalized in mathematics education and careers.

Some Gaussian periods for the 29,070-th cyclotomic extension. Image credit: E. Eischen, based on earlier work by W. Duke, S. R. Garcia, T. Hyde, and R. Lutz

The topical workshop will be dedicated to Shouwu Zhang, to mark the occasion of his 60th birthday, and to honour his numerous beautiful contributions to the theory of Shimura varieties and special values of L-functions. It will highlight cutting edge work on topics such as the construction of Euler systems; relations between special cycles on Shimura varieties and L-functions, such as generalized Gross-Zagier formulas and the Tate conjecture; the construction of Galois representations in cohomology; and related aspects of the theory of automorphic forms.

Rational points on a general type surface. Image by Hector Pasten.

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

This workshop will feature expository lectures about  current developments in  Diophantine geometry. This includes  the uniform Mordell—Lang for rational points on curves,  the  Andre—Oort conjecture for special points on Shimura varieties, and effective results via Chabauty method, and related topics in  Arakelov theory, unlikely intersections, arithmetic statistics, arithmetic dynamics, and p-adic Hodge theory.

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

This workshop will highlight talks on various aspects of Diophantine Geometry. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers at different career stages and of various backgrounds in order to establish new collaborations and mentoring relationships. Although we will showcase the research of mathematicians who identify as women or gender minorities, this workshop is open to all.

Image credit: Vincent J. Matsko, 6-adic Koch-like fractal. For details, see http://www.vincematsko.com/Art/ICERM.html

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

The Introductory Workshop aims to provide a coherent overview of current research in algebraic cycles, L-values, Euler systems, and the many connections between them. This includes the study of special cycles on Shimura varieties and moduli spaces of shtukas, integral representations of L-values and the construction of p-adic L-functions, and the construction of Euler systems from special elements in Chow groups or higher Chow groups of Shimura varieties. Workshop lectures will be organized into short lecture series, so as to allow each series to begin with expository lectures on foundational results before moving on to current research. This workshop is held in honor of mathematician Bernadette Perrin-Riou.

David Lowry-Duda. Modular form of weight 32 and level 3. For details, see http://davidlowryduda.com/trace-form/

This will be a hybrid workshop with both in-person and virtual participation.

The Connections Workshop features presentations by both leading researchers and promising newcomers whose research has contact with the interrelated topics of algebraic cycles, L-values, and Euler systems. The goal is to present a variety of diverse results, so as to forge new connections, foster collaborative projects, and establish mentoring relationships. While emphasis will be placed on the work of women mathematicians, the workshop is open to all researchers. This workshop is held in honor of mathematician Bernadette Perrin-Riou.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation only available to members of the semester-long program and invited guests.  Online participation will be open to all who register.  Due to limited capacity, mathematicians who have not received an official invitation will not be permitted to enter the institute.

The workshop will focus on the interaction between homotopy theory and symplectic topology and low dimensional topology that is mediated by Floer theory. Among the topics covered are foundational questions, applications to concrete geometric questions, and the relationship with finite dimensional approaches.

ALL FUNDING FOR THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN ALLOCATED

As part of the Mathematical Sciences Collaborative Diversity Initiatives, the six NSF-funded U.S. mathematics institutes will host their annual SACNAS pre-conference event, the 2022 Modern Math Workshop (MMW). The Modern Math Workshop encourages undergraduates from underrepresented groups to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences, and builds research and networking opportunities among undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs.

Image drawn by Dr. Lotte Hollands

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation only available to members of the semester-long program and invited guests.  Online participation will be open to all who register.  Due to limited capacity, mathematicians who have not received an official invitation will not be permitted to enter the institute.

This workshop will bring together researchers working on new four-dimensional gauge theories from the perspectives of differential geometry, algebraic geometry, and physics. Over the last 25 years, physicists have made tantalizing conjectures relating the Vafa–Witten equation to modular forms and the Kapustin–Witten and Haydys–Witten equations to knot theory and the geometric Langlands programme. The analytical challenges in the way of establishing these predictions are now being pursued vigorously.  More recently, algebraic geometers have had enormous success in confirming and refining Vafa–Witten's predictions for projective surfaces. The workshop will serve as a platform for reporting on recent progress and exchanging ideas in all of these areas, with the aim of strengthening existing and fostering new interactions.

A Fleur Homotopy.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program and speakers. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

Over the last decade, there has been a wealth of new applications of homotopy-theoretic techniques to Floer homology in low-dimensional topology and symplectic geometry, including Manolescu’s disproof of the high-dimensional Triangulation Conjecture and Abouzaid-Blumberg’s proof of the Arnol’d Conjecture in finite characteristic. Conversely, results in Floer theory and categorification have opened new directions of research in homotopy theory, from string topology to S-Lie algebras. The goal of this workshop is to introduce researchers in Floer theory to modern techniques and questions in homotopy theory and, conversely, introduce researchers in homotopy theory to ideas underlying Floer theory and its applications.

An illustration of a generic Heegaard quadruple by K. Hendricks, J. Hom, M. Stoffregen, and I. Zemke

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program, speakers and a limited number of invited participants. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This workshop will feature talks by experts in Floer theory (and its applications to low-dimensional topology) and homotopy theory. It will include two expository lectures aimed at graduate students and other researchers who are new to the field, as well as a sequence of research talks and a contributed talks session. There will also be a panel discussion focusing on professional development. The majority of the speakers and panelists for this event will be women and gender minorities, and members of these groups and of other underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to attend. This workshop is open to all mathematicians.

Portion of a letter from Maxwell to Tait dated December 4, 1867 computing the linking number of two curves

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program and speakers. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

The workshop will highlight the utility and impact of gauge theory in other areas of math. Mini-courses will cover the historical utility and impact of gauge theory in areas including low-dimensional topology, algebraic geometry, and the analysis of PDE; additional talks will cover more recent directions.

The nilpotent cone in red over the 0, and the points A, B and C, lying over the C*-fow and of the Hitchin section respectively.

This will be a hybrid workshop with in-person participation by members of the semester-long program, speakers and a limited number of invited participants. Online participation will be open to all who register. 

This two-day workshop will consist of various talks given by prominent female mathematicians on topics of analytic and geometric aspects of gauge theory. These will be appropriate for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in areas related to the program.  The meeting aims to support young researchers working in analytic and geometric aspects of gauge theory by   facilitating mentoring from senior colleagues and helping towards the development of crucial professional skills. The format will include mentoring pairings, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions as well as the opportunity for informal discussions and connections.

Graph of the Motzkin polynomial, which is nonnegative but not a sum of squares.

The study of nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares is a classical area of real algebraic geometry dating back to Hilbert’s 17th problem. It also has rich connections to real analysis via duality and moment problems. In the last 15 years, sums of squares relaxations have found a wide array of applications from very applied areas (e.g., robotics, computer vision, and machine learning) to theoretical applications (e.g., extremal combinatorics, theoretical computer science). Also, an intimate connection between sums of squares and classical algebraic geometry has been found. Work in this area requires a blend of ideas and techniques from algebraic geometry, convex geometry and representation theory. After an introduction to nonnegative polynomials, sums of squares and semidefinite optimization, we will focus on the following three topics:

• Sums of squares on real varieties (sets defined by real polynomial equations) and connections with classical algebraic geometry.
• Sums of squares method for proving graph density inequalities in extremal combinatorics. Here addition and multiplication take place in the gluing algebra of partially labelled graphs.
• Sums of squares relaxations for convex hulls of real varieties and theta-bodies with applications in optimization.

The summer school will give a self-contained introduction aimed at beginning graduate students, and introduce participants to the latest developments. In addition to attending the lectures, students will meet in intensive problem and discussion sessions that will explore and extend the topics developed in the lectures.

A tropical stable map and the corresponding floor diagram

Enumerative geometry and the theory of moduli spaces of curves are two cornerstones of modern algebraic geometry; the two subjects have had a significant influence on each other. In the last 15 years, discrete and combinatorial methods, systematized within tropical geometry, have begun to provide new avenues of access into these two subjects. The goal of this summer school is to give students crash courses in tropical and logarithmic geometry, with a particular focus on the applications in enumerative geometry and moduli theory.  The school will consist of three courses of seven lectures each:

1. Enumeration of tropical curves/ by Hannah Markwig
2. Curve counting in tropical and algebraic geometry by Renzo Cavalieri
3. Logarithmic geometry and stable map/s by Dhruv Ranganathan

Popular visualization of the MNIST dataset

This school is offered in partnership with Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (INdAM) and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Learning theory is a rich field at the intersection of statistics, probability, computer science, and optimization. Over the last decades the statistical learning approach has been successfully applied to many problems of great interest, such as bioinformatics, computer vision, speech processing, robotics, and information retrieval. These impressive successes relied crucially on the mathematical foundation of statistical learning.

Recently, deep neural networks have demonstrated stunning empirical results across many applications like vision, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning. The field is now booming with new mathematical problems, and in particular, the challenge of providing theoretical foundations for deep learning techniques is still largely open. On the other hand, learning theory already has a rich history, with many beautiful connections to various areas of mathematics (e.g., probability theory, high dimensional geometry, game theory). The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students (and advanced undergraduates) to these foundational results, as well as to expose them to the new and exciting modern challenges that arise in deep learning and reinforcement learning.

Recently, progress in the field of topological methods in discrete mathematics has been rapid and has generated a lot of activity with the resolution of major open problems, the emergence of new lines of inquiry, and the development of new tools. These exciting new developments have not been digested into a textbook treatment. The two main goals of this school are to:

1. Provide graduate students with a thorough introduction to novel topological techniques and to a handful of their applications in the fields of combinatorics and discrete geometry with short glimpses into mathematical mechanics and algorithm complexity.
2. Expose students to current research, and guide them in research on open problems in discrete mathematics using modern topological tools.

The summer school will lead participants from appealing, simple-to-state problems at confluence of combinatorics, geometry, and topology to sophisticated topological methods that are required for their resolution. In recent years topological methods have found numerous novel applications in mathematics and beyond, such as in data science, machine learning, economics, the social sciences, and biology.  The problems we will discuss are particularly well-suited to rapidly put students in a position to approach related research questions.

Fluid-flow stream function color-coded by vorticity in 3D flat torus calculated by K. Nakai (The University of Tokyo)

This school is offered in partnership with the National Center for Theoretical Sciences.

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce graduate students to fundamental results on the Navier-Stokes and the Euler equations, with special emphasis on the solvability of its initial value problem with rough initial data as well as the large time behavior of a solution. These topics have long research history. However, recent studies clarify the problems from a broad point of view, not only from analysis but also from detailed studies of orbit of the flow.

The PCMI graduate summer school program in 2022 will consist of a sequence of 11 minicourses. The lecturers and topics for these minicourses are listed below. Each minicourse is accompanied by a problem session. The topics are arranged so that there is good material and opportunities for learning both for less experienced students as well as more advanced students. Beyond their attendance in these minicourse sessions, all graduate participants will be able to take part in the substantial other benefits of a PCMI session. This includes the opportunity to interact with the researchers in residence and take part in the research seminar component of PCMI. Many graduate students also interact in significant ways with the undergraduate cohort,,the undergraduate faculty cohort, and may also participate in the many pedagogically focused activities which form part of the K-12 Teacher Leadership Program and the Workshop for Equity in Mathematics Education. PCMI includes numerous cross-program activities to help members from all these groups interact with one another.

Several geometric ideas in the context of a surface: hyperbolic metric, CAT(0) inequality, Gromov hyperbolicity/coarse median geometry, nonpositively-curved square tiling, Besikovitch inequality. (Picture by M. Hagen and A. Sisto.)

The purpose of the summer school is to introduce graduate students to key mainstream directions in the recent development of geometry, which sprang from Riemannian Geometry in an attempt to use its methods in various contexts of non-smooth geometry. This concerns recent developments in metric generalizations of the theory of nonpositively curved spaces and discretizations of methods in geometry, geometric measure theory and global analysis. The metric geometry perspective gave rise to new results and problems in Riemannian Geometry as well.

All these themes are intertwined and have developed either together or greatly influencing one another. The summer school will introduce some of the latest developments and the remaining open problems in these very modern areas, and will emphasize their synergy.

Image by Prof. Robert Lipshitz

The idea of stable homotopy refinements of Floer homology was first introduced by Cohen, Jones, and Segal in a 1994 paper, but it was only in the last decade that this idea became a key tool in low-dimensional and symplectic topology. The two crowning achievements of these techniques so far are Manolescu's use of his Pin(2)-equivariant Seiberg--Witten Floer homotopy type to resolve the Triangulation Conjecture and Abouzaid-Blumberg's use of Floer homotopy theory and Morava K-theory to prove the general Arnol'd Conjecture in finite characteristic. During this period, a range of related techniques, included under the umbrella of Floer homotopy theory, have also led to important advances, including involutive Heegaard Floer homology, Smith theory for Lagrangian intersections, homotopy coherence, and further connections between string topology and Floer theory. These in turn have sparked developments in algebraic topology, ranging from developments on Lie algebras in derived algebraic geometry to new computations of equivariant Mahowald invariants to new results on topological Hochschild homology.
 
The goal of the summer school is to provide participants the tools in symplectic geometry and stable homotopy theory required to work on Floer homotopy theory. Students will come away with a basic understanding of some of the key techniques, questions, and challenges in both of these fields. The summer school may be particularly valuable for participants with a solid understanding of one of the two fields who want to learn more about the other and the connections between them.

by DeDelphin Sénizergues

The topic of random graphs is at the forefront of applied probability, and it is one of the central topics in multidisciplinary science where mathematical ideas are used to model and understand the real world. At the same time, random graphs pose challenging mathematical problems that have attracted the attention from probabilists and combinatorialists since the 1960, with the pioneering work of Erdös and Rényi. Around the turn of the millennium, very large data sets started to become available, and several applied disciplines started to realize that many real-world networks, even though they are from various different origins, share many fascinating features. In particular, many of such networks are small worlds, meaning that graph distances in them are typically quite small, and they are scalefree, in the sense that there are enormous differences in the number of connections that their elements make. In particular, such networks are quite different from the classical random graph models, such as proposed by Erdös and Rényi.

Algebraic Theory Of Differential And Difference Equations, Model Theory And Their Applications

The purpose of the summer school will be to introduce graduate students to effective methods in algebraic theories of differential and difference equations with emphasis on their model-theoretic foundations and to demonstrate recent applications of these techniques to studying dynamic models arising in sciences. While these topics comprise a coherent and rich subject, they appear in graduate coursework in at best a piecemeal way, and then only as components of classes for other aims. With this Summer Graduate School, students will learn both the theoretical basis of differential and difference algebra and how to use these methods to solve practical problems. Beyond the lectures, the graduate students will meet daily in problem sessions and will participate in one-on-one mentoring sessions with the lecturers and organizers.

This school is offered in partnership with the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and the University of Hawaii, Hilo.

Representation Theory has undergone a revolution in recent years, with the development of what is now known as higher representation theory. In particular, the notion of categorification has led to the resolution of many problems previously considered to be intractable.

The school will begin by providing students with a brief but thorough introduction to what could be termed the “bread and butter of modern representation theory”, i.e., compact Lie groups and their representation theory; character theory; structure theory of algebraic groups.

We will then continue on to a number of more specialized topics. The final mix will depend on discussions with the prospective lecturers, but we envisage such topics as:

• modular representation theory of finite groups (blocks, defect groups, Broué’s conjecture);

• perverse sheaves and the geometric Satake correspondence;

• the representation theory of real Lie groups.

photo courtesy of Panagiota Daskalopoulos

[The image on this vase from Minoan Crete, dated on 1500-2000 BC, resembles an ancient solution to the Curve shortening flow - one of the most basic geometric flows. The vase is at Heraklion Archaeological Museum]

This summer graduate school is a collaboration between MSRI and the FORTH-IACM Institute in Crete. The purpose of the school is to introduce graduate students to some of the most important geometric evolution equations. Information about the location of the summer school can be found here.

This is an area of geometric analysis that lies at the interface of differential geometry and partial differential equations. The lectures will begin with an introduction to nonlinear diffusion equations and continue with classical results on the Ricci Flow, the  Mean curvature flow and other fully non-linear extrinsic flows such as the Gauss curvature flow. The lectures will also include geometric applications such as isoperimetric inequalities, topological applications such as the Poincaré onjecture, as well as recent important developments related to the study of singularities and ancient solutions.