Author: Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson

The Laboratory for Topology and Neuroscience (EPFL) and L2F—Learn to Forecast (EPFL Innovation Park) invite applications for two postdoctoral positions in topological data analysis and machine learning, funded by the project “Topological Warning Signals for Critical System Transitions” supported by Innosuisse (Swiss Innovation Agency).

The aim of this project is to develop original predictive methods, combining advances in topological data analysis with machine learning research. The first goal of the project, inspired by critical phase transitions, is to define a new type of early warning signal using applied topology, in order to better anticipate sudden changes of regime such as financial crashes, earthquakes, or epileptic attacks. The second goal concerns the creation of new local features by analyzing the topology of datasets, in order to generalize current topological data analysis techniques to enhance the performance of machine learning models. 

L2F is a research-driven company that offers mathematically sophisticated machine learning solutions to corporate and institutional clients. L2F’s researchers, who won the 2017 NYC Taxi Challenge on Kaggle, are motivated by the desire to understand the fundamental laws of machine learning, in terms of its underlying mathematical theory. L2F is one of the fastest growing Swiss companies, with already 30 employees after one year of existence, and provides an exciting environment for multi-disciplinary researchers.

The appointed candidates will be based at L2F on the EPFL Innovation Park and engage in state-of-the-art research, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Topology and Neuroscience.

Candidates should hold a PhD in one of the following areas: algebraic topology, theoretical physics, or machine learning. Please send your cover letter, CV, and publication list to Kathryn Hess at kathryn.hess@epfl.ch  and Maxime Gabella at m.gabella@l2f.ch, to whom you should arrange for three letters of reference to be sent as well.

Starting date: March 1, 2019, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Duration: 18 months.

Application deadline: January 1, 2019.

Conference on Geometric Data Analysis, May 20-23, 2019, on the University of Chicago main campus in Hyde Park.

This conference will bring together experts from around the world in the combination of geometrical or topological methods with probabilistic and statistical ones for the study of data.  Different ideas have been found valuable in the handling of different kinds of data, and we hope to promote discussions of what works and what fails, and when and why.

Invited Speakers

Yuliy Baryshnikov, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois
Mikhail Belkin, Computer Science, Engineering and Statistics, Ohio State University
Paul L. Bendich, Mathematics, Duke University
Omer Bobrowski, Electrical Engineering, Technion, Institute of Technology, Israel
Jeff Brock?, Yale University
Gunnar Carlsson, Mathematics, Stanford University
Daniela Egas Santander, Topology and Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Tamal Krishna Dey, Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State University
Tingra Gao, Statistics, University of Chicago
Herbert Edelsbrunner, Computer Science and Mathematics, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria
Clément Levrard, Probabilités, Statistique et Modélisation, Université Paris Diderot, France
Mauro Maggioni, Mathematics, John Hopkins University
Facundo Mémoli, Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State University
Bertrand Michel, Informatique et Mathématiques, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France
Ezra Miller, Mathematics, Duke University
Sayan Mukherjee, Statistical Science, Duke University
Takashi Owada, Statistiques, Purdue University
Gennady Samorodnitsky, Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University
Benjamin Schweinhart, Mathematics, Ohio State University
Amit Singer, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Statistics and Machine Learning, Princeton University
Jonathan Taylor, Statistics, Stanford University
Katharine Turner, Mathematical Sciences, National University, Australia

? to be confirmed

Details about the conference are available on our website:

• Logistical details re.this 4-day conference (May 20-23, 2019) on the University of Chicago main campus in Hyde Park.
https://stevanovichcenter.uchicago.edu/geometric-data-analysis-logistics/
• Registration is free and open until May 13, 2019.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/geometric-data-analysis-2019-tickets-52263737245
• Join our mailing list to receive reminders and updates.

Sign Up Form

Please note:

• Travel funds are available to PhD Students, Postdoctoral Students and Early Career Academics.  Please submit your application ( https://form.jotform.com/82675929584173 ) by January 9, 2019.
You will be asked to submit your CV, a brief research statement (up to 250 words), and a brief statement explaining why and how attending this conference will contribute to your research (up to 250 words). In addition, please ask someone who is familiar with your work (your academic advisor or your mentor) to send a brief letter supporting your application to sbendier@uchicago.edu, by January 9, 2019. The letter should be addressed to the GDA 2019 Selection Committee.

• Poster sessions will be organized. If you’d like your poster to be considered, please submit your application ( https://form.jotform.com/82675929584173 ) by January 9, 2019.

If you have any questions, please email Sylvie at sbendier@uchicago.edu

We hope to see you in May!

Scientific Committee: Robert Adler (Technion), Frederic Chazal (INRIA), Shmuel Weinberger (Chicago)

There are some postings at MathJobs.org that specify Topological Data Analysis. These include:

Postdoc:

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12518 Florida State University; department interests include TDA

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12021 Several possible sites, including Florida State University where department interests include TDA

Faculty:

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12350 Hong Kong University, tenured or tenure track

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12666 Northeastern University, open rank

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12155 University of Luxembourg, expected to create a new research group

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12493 Florida State University, tenure track; department interests include TDA

https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12102 North Carolina State University (Raleigh), tenure track

There are several PhD positions available in Artificial Intelligence at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Deadline: September 30th 2018

Detailed information:

https://www.kth.se/en/om/work-at-kth/lediga-jobb/what:job/jobID:219360/type:job/where:4/apply:1

Further information regarding project B):

Project B) may in particular be of interest also to students interested in Computational Topology/Geometry and Machine Learning as there are intriguing connections between e.g. computational geometry and recent machine learning approaches such as deep convolutional neural networks.

Data-Driven Foundations for Robust Deformable Object Manipulation

The project’s goals are to develop new paradigms for machine learning under constraints imposed by physics. This is a key challenge with current approaches such as “Deep Learning” which often perform well empirically, but have to date few mathematical guarantees.

The student will in particular investigate how to combine approaches to rigorous mathematical modeling of deformable objects such as plastics and metal sheets with recent advances in machine learning for state estimation and prediction. The project will be conducted in collaboration also with Chalmers University where real-world experiments with industrial robots will be performed which will provide a possibility for validation of hypotheses and to test the applicability of the developed methods to controlling a robot’s actions in deformable object manipulation tasks.

New ideas coming from geometry and topology, persistent homology and sheaf cohomology, etc may find application in developing new algorithms in this area and there is interest in candidates with a wide variety of backgrounds, including candidates with strong knowledge of computational geometry, algebraic geometry, topology, differential geometry, probability theory, etc.

For questions on project B), please contact:

Florian Pokorny,

Assistant Professor, KTH

http://www.csc.kth.se/~fpokorny

We are pleased to announce the 5th School on Topological Data Analysis and Related Topics, which will take place at the Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas in Guanajuato, Mexico, on November 19th-23rd. The school is part of the joint effort between CIMAT, CINVESTAV, UNAM, and other institutions to promote the development of topological data analysis in Mexico and Latin America, and is structured to foster interaction and discussion among all participants, both researchers and students alike.

The school will consist of 3 mini-courses by the following speakers:

Jacek Brodzki, Southampton

Ezra Miller, Duke 

Sara Kalisnik, MPI – Wesleyan

as well as invited talks by:

Daniela Egas Santander, EPFL

Eduardo Saenz de Cabezón, La Rioja

Additionally, there will be contributed talks and a poster session.

If you would like to give a talk or present a poster, please send an abstract to antonio.rieser@cimat.mx and/or abraham.mx@cimat.mx.

Deadlines:

Application for financial support: September 30, 2018

Registration: October 26, 2018

Website: atd2018.eventos.cimat.mx

Contact: abraham.mc@cimat.mx, antonio.rieser@cimat.mx, rosa@cimat.mx

This is the first announcement for the Upstate New York Topology Seminar that will take place on Saturday & Sunday, November 10 & 11, 2018, at the University at Albany, State University of New York. The Upstate New York Topology Seminar (UNYTS) started under the name Topology Day, on September 15, 2017, at the University at Buffalo, SUNY (https://www.buffalo.edu/cas/math/news-events/calendar/topology-17.html).

This weekend conference will feature plenary lectures on a broad range of topics in algebraic, geometric, and applied topology, as well as geometric group theory, given by:

Henry Adams (Colorado State University),

Julie Bergner (University of Virginia),

Ben Knudsen (Harvard University),

Elizabeth Munch (Michigan State University),

Pedro Ontaneda (Binghamton University, SUNY),

Timothy Riley (Cornell University),

Nick Salter (Columbia University),

Inna Zakharevich (Cornell University).

Talks will begin at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday and end by 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, and will be held in UAlbany’s Massry Center for Business, room BB-B012. The schedule and more details will be posted on the conference webpage at https://www.albany.edu/~mv312143/unyts/.

If you plan to attend, please fill out the registration form at https://goo.gl/forms/FXuw359rhnEvQwLt2 to help us in planning.

We have applied for NSF funding to cover travel expenses for some participants, particularly those in the early stages of their careers or from historically underrepresented groups. If you would like to be considered for funding, please indicate this on the registration form.

We have reserved a block of rooms at $104/night (before taxes) at the Marriott Courtyard across the street from UAlbany’s campus. Booking details are posted on the conference webpage at https://www.albany.edu/~mv312143/unyts/.

We hope to see you in Albany in November!

Ellen Gasparovic

Brenda Johnson

Marco Varisco

The subject of confusion for years already in the TDA community, a recent preprint [ http://elizabethmunch.com/pdf/LizAndKateAreTheSame.pdf ] has appeared, written by Kate Munch and Liz Turner, dealing once and for all with the source of confusion between Kate Turner and Liz Munch.

Hello all,

On behalf of the organizing committee, we would like to invite you to *save the date* for the second Women in Computational Topology Workshop!  WinCompTop 2 will take place from 1-5 July, 2019 at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia. Further details are still pending, but we are reaching out now to inform the community of this exciting event next year. We will be applying for funding to hopefully provide some support for participants’ travel. 

The idea behind this workshop, similar to its predecessor, is to bring women at various stages of their career together to begin work on a project in computational topology as posed by a senior group leader.  The week at ANU will provide the foundation for this collaboration which will hopefully extend past the workshop as happened after WinCompTop1 (https://www.ima.umn.edu/2015-2016/SW8.15-19.16).  This model has also worked very well for a number of other groups, including Women in Numbers (WiN), Women in Topology (WiT), and Women in Shape Analysis (WiSH), among many others.  

Applications will open sometime in the 2018-19 academic year. In the meantime, please save the date!

 

All the best,

Ellen Gasparovic, Vanessa Robins, and Kate Turner

The recently announced NSF-Simons Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology will be hiring up to seven 3-year postdoctoral positions for recent PhD’s to begin either August 2018 or Jan 2019. One is to work with Peter Bubenik at the University of Florida on Topological Data Analysis and another to work with Natasha Jonoska at the University of South Florida on topological models for dna-rna interactions. See www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/12021 for more details.

The Queen’s University of Belfast (UK) is advertising multiple positions in applied mathematics and data science. We are particularly interested to receive applications from applied (algebraic) topology and related areas . They would be an excellent fit with our existing algebraic topologists and potentially with our statistics department, who are heavily involved in medical-data applications.

The positions are two lectureships (which means starting-level tenured position) in applied mathematics https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BJU108/lectureships-in-applied-mathematics/

and a lectureship/readership in data science. This position is joint with the Institute of Electronics, Communication and Information Technology, it is intended that more senior academics will also apply for this role https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BJU104/lecturer-reader-in-data-science/.

Applications should be made online at http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QUBJobVacancies/AcademicOpportunities/ if anyone would like to get in touch, please contact our Head of Research Professor Ivan Todorov i.todorov@qub.ac.uk

The deadline is July 27, 2018.