RITs and Student Seminars

Spring 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, Mickaël Latocca, Antoine Mellet, Huy Nguyen 
    • 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: Jonathan Rosenberg (Math), S. Jim Gates (Physics), Amin Gholampour (Math), Tristan Hubsch (Howard (Physics) and UMd)
    • Meeting Time: Thursdays at 3:30 PM in PHY1201.  Organizational meeting on Thursday, Jan. 26.  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.
  • RIT on Nonlinear and Nonlocal PDEs
  • 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 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 Machine Learning for Rare Events
    • Organizer: Maria Cameron and Luke Evans
    • Meeting Time: Fridays. Organizational meeting for Fall 2022 on Fri, September 9, 2022 at 2:00pm 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 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 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) the atmosphere and the ocean. Emphasis is put on uncertainty quantification and reduction.
  • RIT on Mathematics of Infectious Diseases
    • Organizer: Doron Levy and Abba Gumel
    • Meeting Times: Wednesdays at 11:00 in room MTH 0302
    • Description: This RIT explores mathematical models for the transmission dynamics and control of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. We will discuss methods for formulating realistic models for various disease systems, as well as techniques and theories for analyzing the qualitative properties of the models. Professor Gumel will start with a series of lectures to give a general overview of the research field and discussion of some interesting challenging problems.  Students interested in a course credit will need to give a presentation on a disease modeling topic of their choice.   
  • RIT on Applied Optimization
    • Organizers: Alex Estes and Raghu Raghavan (Management Science)
    • Meeting Time: Contact organizers if interested
    • Description: This RIT will introduce AMSC students to some current topics in applied optimization (e.g., logistics). We will read and discuss several articles from the literature and then organize the class into small research teams. Each team will work on and "solve" one or two challenge problems provided by our colleagues in industry. Two of these colleagues received Ph.D.s from AMSC in the last 10 years. Sample problems: Logistics and network design for flying taxis, Delivering packages by trucks and drones, Designing meter reading vehicle routes using RFID, and Optimizing organ allocation geography to minimize disparities.
    • Topics Emphasized: Combinatorial, network, and integer optimization (both exact and heuristic approaches).
  • RIT on Parabolic Geometries
    • Organizers: Bill Goldman and Jacob Erickson (Math)
    • Meeting Time: Wednesdays 2-3PM in MTH 1310
    • Description: This RIT is about "parabolic geometries", certain kinds of Cartan geometries generalizing projective geometry.
  • RIT on Hamiltonian Dynamics
    • Organizers: Bassam Fayad and Dmitry Dolgopyat (Math)
    • Meeting Time: to be announced later
    • Description: The goal of this RIT is to discuss basic tools needed to analyze integrable Hamiltonian systems, such as averaging, normal forms, KAM and Nekhoroshev theories, and variational methods. Applications to celestial mechanics, Fermi acceleration and Hamiltonian PDEs may also be discussed depending on student interests.
  • 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.
  • Applied Mathematics Student Seminar