RITs and Student Seminars

Fall 2023

RITs ("Research Interaction Teams") are informal groups designed to foster interaction between faculty, students, and postdocs, and to get students interested in current research. Most of them meet as informal seminars with active student participation (and in many cases, student organization as well).  Course credit is possible for most RITs under the course numbers MATH489, MATH689, and AMSC689.  (Contact the faculty organizer of the particular RIT for more info.)  In addition to the RITs, there are several student seminars which are run by students for students. 

  • RIT on Applied Partial Differential Equations
    • Organizers: Hussain Ibdah, Jeffrey Kuan, and Matei Machedon (fall) and Huy Nguyen (spring)
    • Meeting Time: 3:00pm - 3:50pm Mondays, MTH 1311. 
    • Description: We will study mathematical aspects of applied partial differential equations. These might include well-posedness, long-time behavior, attractor dynamics, stability of coherent structures, asymptotic limits, and the relationship between chaos and stochasticity. However the best description is the list of talks given on the website.
  • RIT on Geometry and Physics
    • Organizers: S. Jim Gates (Physics), Amin Gholampour (Math), Tristan Hubsch (Howard (Physics) and UMd), Jonathan Rosenberg (Math), Richard Wentworth (Math)
    • Meeting Time: Thursdays at 3:30 PM in MTH1313.  Organizational meeting on Thursday, Aug. 31.  Meetings also available on Zoom.
    • Description: This interdisciplinary RIT will aim to foster interactions between mathematicians and physicists on topics of mutual interest, such as supersymmetry, string theory, topological states of matter, and gauge theory.  Contact one of the organizers for more information.  The topic for fall 2023 will be 3-dimensional mirror symmetry.
  • RIT on Optimal Transport
  • RIT on Hodge Theory
    • Organizer: Patrick Brosnan
    • Meeting Time: Fridays 2-3
    • Description: Griffiths and Harris, Principles of Algebraic Geometry, is the recommended starting reference. 
  • RIT on Applied Harmonic Analysis
    • Organizer: Radu Balan
    • Meeting Time: 1:00pm-1:50pm Mondays, MTH 1310
    • Description: We plan to discuss topics in harmonic analysis and related fields (functional analysis, operator and representation theory) with applications to various fields such as signal processing, machine learning, graph representations, quantum information theory.
  • RIT on Mathematical Finance
    • Organizer: Dilip Madan, Finance
    • Meeting Time: Mondays, 4-5 PM, VMH3332
    • Course Credit: available for interested students under the number AMSC689, section no. 6505. 
  • RIT on Weather, Chaos, and Data Assimilation
    • Organizers: Kayo Ide (AOSC) and Brian Hunt (MATH).
    • Meeting Time: Contact organizers for more info.
    • Description: We study prediction and estimation problems for nonlinear dynamical systems with main applications in (but not limited to) earth system sciences. Emphasis is put on uncertainty quantification and reduction, and a rapidly emerging field for the integration of data assimilation and machine learning/artificial intelligence. 
  • RIT on Machine Learning for Rare Events
    • Organizer: Maria Cameron and Luke Evans
    • Meeting Time: Mondays, 3-4 in MTH 1310.
    • Description: This RIT will explore methods for the study of rare events based on machine learning.  Interested students can get course credit; contact Prof. Cameron for details.
  • RIT on Stochastic Optimization
    • Organizers: Michael Fu, Management Science
    • Meeting Time: Not meeting Spring 2023, but may restart in Spring 2024
    • Description: The focus of this RIT will be gradient-based stochastic optimization methodologies and applications, including techniques for stochastic gradient estimation in simulation and other data-driven settings. Other statistical ranking & selection approaches are also considered, as well as Markov decision processes and reinforcement learning. Potential application areas include queueing systems, manufacturing, supply chain management, and financial engineering.
    • Prerequisites: strong background in prob/stats at the advanced undergraduate level; recommended: real analysis and measure theory
  • RIT on Optimization and Equilibrium Problems with Applications in Engineering
    • Organizer:  Steven A. Gabriel, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,
    • Meeting Time: Not meeting Spring 2023, but may restart in Fall 2023.
    • Description: We will cover a variety of problems in optimization and equilibrium modeling, a subject that includes convex optimization, game theory, economics, and has a strong connection to integer programming as well.  Applications are in energy, transportation, and other engineering-economic areas. Professor Gabriel will start with an overview of the field and some suggested applications.  Course credit is available for interested students.  Any student who wants credit will need to give a presentation on a topic of his/her choice in optimization/equilibrium modeling.
  • RIT on Operations Research and Management Science
    • Organizers: Alex Estes, Bruce Golden, Raghu Raghavan, and Zhi-Long Chen
    • Meeting Time: Fridays at 2:00 PM at VMH 2509
    • Description: The topic of the seminar will be operation research and management science. Topics may include stochastic processes, integer programming, stochastic optimization, and machine learning, and applications of these methods. Potential applications include inventory planning, drone and vehicle routing for package delivery, air traffic management, network design, and organ matching. 
  • RIT on Dynamics and Ergodic Theory
  • RIT on Computational Linguistics (aka CLIP Colloquium)
    • Organizers: Doug Oard, Information Studies and UMIACS
    • Meeting Time: Contact organizer for details
  • Informal Geometric Analysis Seminar
  • RIT on Statistics
    • Organizers: Vince Lyzinski
    • Meeting Time: Tuesdays 3:30-4:30
    • Prerequisites: a basic knowledge of statistics
  • RIT on Deep Learning
    • Organizers: Wojtek Czaja,  Turner Pepper, and Gabriel Vilarroubi
    • Meeting Time: Fridays at 1PM in MTH 1310.
  • Student Geometry-Topology Seminar
    • Organizer: Jacob Erickson
    • Meeting Time: Fridays at 3:00PM, starting Feb. 3.
  • Student Seminar on Quantum Information Theory
  • Student Algebra-Number Theory Seminar
    • Organizer: Jackson Hopper
    • Meeting Time: to be determined.  Contact Jackson if you want to have input on this.
  • Joint AMSC, MATH and STAT (JAMS) Student Seminar