Past Events

Entropic optimal transport has received a lot of attention in recent years and has become a popular framework for computational optimal transport thanks to the Sinkhorn scaling algorithm. In this talk, I will discuss the multi-marginal case which...

Cells in tissue can communicate short-range via direct contact, and long-range via diffusive signals. In addition, another class of cell-cell communication is by long, thin cellular protrusions that are ~100 microns in length and ~100 nanometers in...

Any countable group G gives rise to a von Neumann algebra L(G). The classification of these group von Neumann algebras is a central theme in operator algebras. I will survey recent rigidity results which provide instances when various algebraic...

A measured geodesic lamination on a hyperbolic surface encodes the horizontal trajectory structure of certain quadratic differentials. Thurston’s earthquake flow along such a lamination induces a dynamical system on the moduli space of hyperbolic...

To initiate movement, cells need to form a well-defined "front" and "rear" through the process of cellular polarization. Polarization is a crucial process involved in embryonic development and cell motility and it is not yet well understood...

Abstract: We consider a stochastic bistable two-species generalized Lotka-Volterra model of the microbiome and use it as a testbed to analytically and numerically explore the role of direct (e.g., fecal microbiota transplantation) and indirect (e.g...

Nonparametric density estimation is a challenging problem in theoretical statistics -- in general a maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) does not even exist! Introducing shape constraints allows a path forward. In this talk I will first discuss non...

Cell division is a vital mechanism for cell proliferation, but it often breaks its symmetry during animal development. Symmetry-breaking of cell division, such as the orientation of the cell division axis and asymmetry of daughter cell sizes...

Steklov eigenproblems and their variants (where the spectral parameter appears in the boundary condition) arise in a range of useful applications. For instance, understanding some properties of the mixed Steklov-Neumann eigenfunctions tells us why...

Cellular polarization plays a critical during cellular differentiation, development, and cellular migration through the establishment of a long-lived cell-front and cell-rear. Although mechanisms of polarization vary across cells types, some common...