Past Events

Join us for a presentation provided by Dr Rohan Alexander, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and the Department of Statistical Sciences (University of Toronto)  

This presentation, aimed at a broad spectrum of researchers, highlights the latest advancements in the acceleration of first-order optimization algorithms, a field that currently attracts the attention of many research teams worldwide. First-order methods, such as gradient descent or stochastic gradient, have gained significant popularity. The seminal development in this area can be attributed to Yurii Nesterov, who proposed a class of accelerated gradient methods in 1983 that demonstrated faster global convergence rates than gradient descent.

Dr. Speagle will provide an overview of Nested Sampling, a complementary framework to Markov Chain Monte Carlo approaches that is designed to estimate marginal likelihoods (i.e. Bayesian evidences) and posterior distributions. He will start by discussing some of the technical details and history behind the approach, focusing on its motivation, formulation, and execution (the Past).

Join the Credit Management and Banking Operations division from Canadian Tire Bank for a discussion (with pizza!) on what they do and how your background in math, stats or computer science could be the perfect fit for a career as a data scientist.  Enjoy casual conversation with data scientists and managers, as they discuss a variety topics in the areas of data extraction, machine-learning model development and general analytics workflow, with examples of how it’s being used within the bank.  Questions about a day in the life of a CTB data scientist?

Speaker: Esha Saha (University of Waterloo) Talk Title: Applications of Random Features in Predicting Epidemics and Function Approximation

SPEAKER: Dr. Messoud Efendiyev (from Helmholtz Center Munich)   TALK TITLE: "Effect of Degeneracy on Dynamics of PDEs"  

CANDIDATE: Thomas Kielstra

CANDIDATE: Mukesh Taank

CANDIDATE: Cameron Jakub

Speaker: Fionntan Roukema Title: An unapologetic approach to calculus Abstract: This talk is about two mathematical arguments of outstanding beauty. The arguments will touch your mathematical soul, and leave you with a visceral connection to the beauty and power of calculus! Regardless of how jaded you feel about teaching or learning integration, seeing these two historical arguments will leave you feeling invigorated.