[Turing-Southampton] CGTA distinguished lecture | 17 June 2019 3-4pm 54/4011 (4A)

[Brodzki J.]

Dear All, 

It is my great pleasure to announce the first annual CGTA distinguished lecture which will take place on Monday, 17th June at 3pm in Mathematics, 54/4011 (4A). We intend this to be an annual feature celebrating research of the Centre for Geometry, Topology, and Applications within the School of Mathematical Sciences at Southampton. 

Our first speaker in the series will be Professor Gunnar Carlsson, Stanford University and Ayasdi. 

The Shape of Data and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: Topological techniques (broadly construed) are turning out to be very useful in making sense of large data sets, and this fact has important consequences for artificial intelligence. The ideas involve the adaptation of homological methods as well as standard methods of homotopy theory to support the unsupervised analysis of complex data.  I will discuss these methods, with examples of various kinds including the analysis of data sets arising out of deep learning, an extremely popular methodology for machine learning.  We will also demonstrate that applications go beyond simple analysis of the algorithms but also permit the construction of architectures for efficient neural networks.  



Professor Carlsson is a world expert in algebraic topology, who has made numerous contributions to the subject, including a proof of Segal’s Burnside conjecture, Sullivan's fixed point conjecture, and many others. He made foundational contributions to equivariant stable homotopy theory, algebraic K-theory and applied algebraic topology. He pioneered topological data analysis and his vision shaped the subject and its initial research directions. He made numerous contributions to TDA, including the mapper algorithm which is a key tool in this area. In 2008 he co-founded the company Ayasdi which develops cutting edge data-analytic methodologies based on topology. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. 

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception. We warmly invite all interested to attend what promises to be an exciting lecture. 


With best wishes, 

Jacek Brodzki

Director, CGTA