SIAM Student Chapter Seminar: Difference between revisions

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*'''When:''' Fridays at 1 PM unless noted otherwise
*'''When:''' Fridays at 1:30 PM unless noted otherwise
*'''Where:''' 9th floor lounge (we will also broadcast the virtual talks on the 9th floor lounge with refreshments)
*'''Where:''' 9th floor lounge (we will also broadcast the virtual talks on the 9th floor lounge with refreshments)
*'''Organizers:''' Yahui Qu, Peiyi Chen and Zaidan Wu
*'''Organizers:''' Yahui Qu, Peiyi Chen and Zaidan Wu
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*'''Passcode:  281031'''
*'''Passcode:  281031'''


== Fall 2024 ==
== Spring 2025 ==


{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|+
!Date
|Date
!Location
|Location
!Speaker
|Speaker
!Title
|Title
|-
|-
|10 AM 10/4
|03/07
|Birge 346
|Federica Ferrarese (University of Ferrara, Italy)
|Control plasma instabilities via an external magnetic field: deterministic and uncertain approaches
|-
|10/18
|9th floor
|Martin Guerra (UW-Madison)
|Swarm-Based Gradient Descent Meets Simulated Annealing
|-
|11/1
|
|
|
|-
|11/8
|9th floor
|9th floor
|Borong Zhang (UW-Madison)
|Ang Li
|
|Applying for postdocs and different industry jobs ... at the
|-
same time
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|-
|-
|04/04
|
|
|
|Borong Zhang
|
|
|
|-
|-
|04/11
|
|
|
|Ian McPherson
|
|
|
|}
|}


==Abstracts==
==Abstracts==
'''October 4th, Federica Ferrarese (University of Ferrara, Italy)''': The study of the problem of plasma confinement in huge devices, such as for example Tokamaks and Stellarators, has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Strong magnetic fields in these systems can lead to instabilities, resulting in vortex formation. Due to the extremely high temperatures in plasma fusion, physical materials cannot be used for confinement, necessitating the use of external magnetic fields to control plasma density. This approach involves studying the evolution of plasma, made up of numerous particles, using the Vlasov-Poisson equations. In the first part of the talk, the case without uncertainty is explored. Particle dynamics are simulated using the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) method, known for its ability to capture kinetic effects and self-consistent interactions. The goal is to derive an instantaneous feedback control that forces the plasma density to achieve a desired distribution. Various numerical experiments are presented to validate the results. In the second part, uncertainty is introduced into the system, leading to the development of a different control strategy. This method is designed to steer the plasma towards a desired configuration even in the presence of uncertainty. The presentation concludes with a comparison of the two control strategies, supported by various numerical experiments.
'''October 18th, Martin Guerra (UW-Madison)''': In generic non-convex optimization, one needs to be able to pull samples out of local optimal points to achieve global optimization. Two common strategies are deployed: adding stochasticity to samples such as Brownian motion, as is done in simulated annealing (SA), and employing a swarm of samples to explore the whole landscape, as is done in Swarm-Based Gradient Descent (SBGD). The two strategies have severe drawbacks but complement each other on their strengths. SA fails in the accuracy sense, i.e., finding the exact optimal point, but succeeds in always being able to get close, while SBGD fails in the probability sense, i.e., it has non-trivial probability to fail, but if succeeds, can find the exact optimal point. We propose to combine the strength of the two and develop a swarm-based stochastic gradient method with samples automatically adjusting their annealing. Using mean-field analysis and long-time behavior PDE tools, we can prove the method to succeed in both the accuracy sense and the probability sense. Numerical examples verify these theoretical findings.


'''March 7th, Ang Li (UW-Madison)''': I will share my experience with postdoc and industry job applications. This talk might be helpful for those who haven’t decided between academia and industry or are considering different paths within industry since I made my own decision quite late.
==Past Semesters==
==Past Semesters==
*[[SIAM Seminar Fall 2024|Fall 2024]]
*[https://wiki.math.wisc.edu/index.php/SIAM_Spring_2024 Spring 2024]
*[https://wiki.math.wisc.edu/index.php/SIAM_Spring_2024 Spring 2024]
*[[SIAM Fall 2023|Fall 2023]]
*[[SIAM Fall 2023|Fall 2023]]

Latest revision as of 22:47, 5 March 2025


Spring 2025

Date Location Speaker Title
03/07 9th floor Ang Li Applying for postdocs and different industry jobs ... at the

same time

04/04 Borong Zhang
04/11 Ian McPherson


Abstracts

March 7th, Ang Li (UW-Madison): I will share my experience with postdoc and industry job applications. This talk might be helpful for those who haven’t decided between academia and industry or are considering different paths within industry since I made my own decision quite late.

Past Semesters

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