Calendar
Posted November 5, 2025
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Lockett Hall 232Qualifier Exam in Analysis
Event contact: Stephen Shipman
Posted November 5, 2025
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Lockett Hall 232Qualifier Exam in Topology
Event contact: Stephen Shipman
Posted November 5, 2025
Last modified December 24, 2025
Qualifier Exam in Algebra
Event contact: Stephen Shipman
Posted November 5, 2025
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Lockett Hall 232Qualifier Exam in Applied Math
Event contact: Stephen Shipman
Posted December 29, 2025
Last modified January 9, 2026
Informal Analysis Seminar Questions or comments?
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm 233
Moisés Gómez-Solís, Louisiana State University
Laura Kurtz, Louisiana State University
Organizational Meeting
Posted November 24, 2025
Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar Questions or comments?
1:30 pm Lockett Hall 233
Krishnendu Kar, Louisiana State University
Matthew Lemoine, Louisiana State University
Organizational Meeting
Join us for the first meeting of the Spring Semester 2026 Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar to decide which topic we will follow. The Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar is an opportunity for graduate students to get experience presenting information that they learn or have learned. We normally have a topic, paper, book, or subject that we follow and take turns presenting the information we learn, or giving independent talks about our own research. If you have any questions or would like to be added to the email list, please feel free to email Matthew Lemoine (mlemo36@lsu.edu) or Krishnendu Kar (kkar2@lsu.edu).
Posted January 4, 2026
Last modified January 8, 2026
Control and Optimization Seminar Questions or comments?
9:30 am – 10:20 am Zoom (click here to join)
Alberto Bressan, Penn State
Eberly Family Chair Professor
Dynamic Blocking Problems for a Model of Fire Confinement
A classical problem in the Calculus of Variations asks to find a curve with a given length, which encloses a region of maximum area. In this talk I shall discuss the seemingly opposite problem of finding curves enclosing a region with minimum area. Problems of this kind arise naturally in the control of forest fires, where firemen seek to construct a barrier, minimizing the total area of the region burned by the fire. In this model, a key parameter is the speed at which the barrier is constructed. If the construction rate is too slow, the fire cannot be contained. After describing how the fire propagation can be modeled in terms of a PDE, the talk will focus on three main questions: (1) Can the fire be contained within a bounded region? (2) If so, is there an optimal strategy for constructing the barrier, minimizing the total value of the land destroyed by the fire? and (3) How can we find optimal strategies? Problem (1) is still largely open. See https://sites.psu.edu/bressan/2-research/ for a cash prize that has been offered for its solution since 2011.
Posted January 9, 2026
Last modified January 21, 2026
Informal Analysis Seminar Questions or comments?
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Lockett 233
Maganizo Kapita, Louisiana State University
Statistical Learning of Stochastic Reaction Networks from Event-Time Data
tbd
Posted January 15, 2026
Last modified January 20, 2026
Informal Geometry and Topology Seminar Questions or comments?
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm Lockett Hall 233
Nilangshu Bhattacharyya, Louisiana State University
From Khovanov homology to its stable homotopy refinement
Khovanov homology assigns a knot or a link to a bigraded homology theory that categorifies the Jones polynomial. It has concrete applications, for instance Rasmussen’s $s$-invariant, extracted from Lee’s deformation, which gives a lower bound on the smooth slice genus. At the same time, while the theory is very combinatorial and closely tied to the representation theory of $U_q(\mathfrak{sl}_2)$, it can be hard to see the underlying geometric picture directly from the homology groups. The stable homotopy refinement, introduced by Lipshitz and Sarkar, upgrades Khovanov homology to a space level invariant: a spectrum whose cohomology recovers Khovanov homology while supporting additional structure that is invisible in homology. In this talk, I will start with the construction of Khovanov homology and then gradually move toward its stable homotopy refinement. My work uses this viewpoint to build and study stable homotopy types beyond classical links, including planar trivalent graphs with perfect matchings, and to connect these refinements with themes from contact geometry and Floer theoretic settings.
Posted December 1, 2025
Last modified January 9, 2026
Control and Optimization Seminar Questions or comments?
9:30 am – 10:20 am Zoom (click here to join)
Jameson Graber, Baylor University
NSF CAREER Awardee
Remarks on Potential Mean Field Games
Mean field games were introduced about 20 years ago to model the limit of N-player differential games as N goes to infinity. There are many applications to economics, finance, social sciences and biology. In many interesting cases the Nash equilibrium turns out to be a critical point for a functional, called the potential, in which case the game itself is called potential. In this case I will present several mathematical results on potential mean field games, which are directly connected to the theory of optimal control of PDE. For related work, see https://doi.org/10.1007/s40687-024-00494-3.