Image drawn by Dr. Katy Craig

***Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the 2020 Hot Topics: Optimal transport and applications to machine learning and statistic workshop will no longer be held onsite at MSRI, rather it will take place online from May 4-8 as scheduled***

All on-site programming at MSRI in Berkeley is cancelled. **Please DO NOT TRAVEL to Berkeley / MSRI for this event.

Workshop Description:
The goal of the workshop is to explore the many emerging connections between the theory of Optimal Transport and models and algorithms currently used in the Machine Learning community. In particular, the use of Wasserstein metrics and the relation between discrete models and their continuous counterparts will be presented and discussed.

Image created by Nicolas Antille, of the visualization team of the Blue Brain Project at EPFL

The talks in this workshop will present a wide array of current applications of topology in neuroscience, including classification and synthesis of neuron morphologies, analysis of synaptic plasticity, algebraic analysis of the neural code, topological analysis of neural networks and their dynamics, topological decoding of neural activity, diagnosis of traumatic brain injuries, and topological biomarkers for psychiatric disease. Some of the talks will be devoted to promising new directions in algebraic topology that have been inspired by neuroscience.