Institute for Pure and a National Science Foundation Math Institute ANNUAL at the University of California, Los Angeles FALL 2015

RESEARCHERSNEWSLETTER ACROSS DISCIPLINES SEEK TO SOLVE

FUNDAMENTAL EVOLUTIONARY QUESTIONSc

In an academic world largely divided by statistics with the computer science for estimating evolutionary histories – from disciplinary boundaries, Tandy Warnow developing efficient algorithms, then take how humans and other biological species is a leader in bridging the gaps. Warnow that to the biologists as part of an iterative evolved to more complicated questions connects mathematicians, computer process of making progress on problems.” such as the evolution of gene sequences, as scientists, and biologists in an effort to well as the evolution of languages. solve complex problems in genomics – Warnow’s interest in collaborating questions as fundamental as how life on across disciplines is what drew her “Over the last several decades, the research Earth evolved, and how organisms change to IPAM. “IPAM is the most exciting community has formulated evolution as a result of their interactions with other institute for connecting applied and pure as a random process generating DNA organisms and with their environment. mathematicians with people outside of sequences, and has used properties of the mathematics,” she says. “People who are random process in an effort to determine “Genomics involves data generation and at the forefront of biology but need new the technology for doing the sequencing methods and ideas are paired with top – the analysis of which involves a lot mathematical scientists who appreciate of computer science and statistics,” the importance of interacting with other says Warnow, the Founder Professor disciplines to study the most important of Engineering in the departments of problems and move closer to solutions.” computer science and bioengineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Although she is housed in a computer Champaign. “But it’s what you do with the science department, Warnow’s PhD is in data that can transform the sciences. My pure mathematics from UC Berkeley, and goal is to bring together the understanding math continues to inform all of her scholarly Tandy Warnow of mathematics, probability theory, and work. Warnow’s focus is on methods for Univ. of Illinois (continued on page 3) IPAM HOSTS FIRST LATINA/OS IN MATH CONFERENCE

On April 9-11, 2015, IPAM was honored fields and higher education led by Ana Mari to host the first ever Latina/os in the Cauce, Interim President of the University Mathematical Sciences Conference. The of Washington, and Cristina Villalobos, conference celebrated the contributions of Professor and Director of the Center of Latina/os to mathematics and encouraged Excellence in STEM Education, University students to pursue advanced degrees and of Texas-Pan American; a hands-on math careers in math. The event was a major activity for local high school students; and step in building a community of Latina/o a banquet with special guest Edward James mathematicians that supports and promotes Olmos, who portrayed legendary math the advancement of its members. teacher Jaime Escalante in the film Stand and Deliver. Special thanks to the organizing Over 150 students, postdocs, faculty and committee, speakers, panelists, session professionals attended the conference which chairs, and conference sponsors NSA and included research talks, panel discussions, Raytheon. To read about the conference and mentoring activities, and a celebratory Latina/os in view videos of selected research talks, go to banquet. Highlights included presentations www.ipam.ucla.edu/lat2015. n Math Conference and a discussion on Latina/os in STEM

INSIDE FEATURES REGULARS OTHER

Financial Mathematics 2 Director’s Note 2 Corporate Giving 5 Materials Science Open Problems 3 News and Recognition 4 Upcoming Programs 6 Culture Analytics 8 Frontiers Society 5 Call for Proposals 6 NOTE FROM DIRECTOR RUSSEL CAFLISCH

It’s been a good year for IPAM! After a The year was marked by two strong long This was also a year of transition. We will successful site visit, the National Science programs. Mathematics of Turbulence miss Mike Raugh, who stepped down Foundation renewed IPAM’s funding for brought together physicists, engineers, and as director of RIPS (IPAM’s summer another five years, through 2020. In a mathematicians for a new look at an old undergraduate research program), after time of tighter federal budgets, this was a subject. The program highlighted exciting 15 years. Also Skip Garibaldi, IPAM’s nontrivial feat. Though we were pleased by progress on topics such as spontaneous Associate Director for the last two years, the outcome, our NSF funding will stay flat, stochasticity and lean models for moved to the Center for Communications at the level of the last 5 years. Consequently, turbulence. The second long program was Research West. He was replaced by Jorge external fundraising is more important New Directions in Financial Mathematics, Balbás from California State University than ever. We are grateful for recent with participants from academia, industry Northridge, who has been involved in generous contributions from IPAM Trustee and regulatory agencies. This program several IPAM programs. David Balaban and from AMD facilitated focused on data analysis and systemic risk, by IPAM Trustee Alan Lee, as well as from in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08, IPAM will be 15 years old this fall! A many other individuals and corporations. as well as recent developments in high- special event on October 6th will celebrate frequency trading and financialization of our anniversary, with presentations by commodity markets. Roja Bandari (Twitter), Maryam Fazel (University of Washington) and Ranaan The workshop topics from last year - Schul (SUNY Stony Brook), each of whom genomics, computational photography, was strongly influenced by IPAM at an early Zariski-dense subgroups, machine learning stage in their career. A 15th anniversary for materials, and quantum physics - fundraising campaign will feature an demonstrate the breadth of IPAM’s interests. opportunity to “name a seat” in our recently Our sponsorship of the Blackwell-Tapia renovated seminar room. I urge you to get Conference, the Latina/os in Mathematics involved with IPAM by attending the 15th Conference, and the Women in Financial Anniversary Event (and other programs) Russel Caflisch Mathematics workshop demonstrate our and by contributing to this campaign. n IPAM Director commitment to diversity.

LONG PROGRAM EXPLORES NEW DIRECTIONS FOR FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS IN AFTERMATH OF CRISIS

In the years since the financial crisis of and growth of high-frequency markets “We thought it was time to expose 2007-08, leaders in the field of financial dramatically changed the industry, entrants to the field to the new realities mathematics have been concerned that resulting in new demands that need to be of the financial industry,” says Carmona. their research has become less relevant. better reflected in academic research.” “Yes, derivative pricing is still active, Although traditional areas of focus and the credit market hasn’t completely To address these demands, Carmona such as derivative pricing, hedging, disappeared, but the challenges are now joined with George Papanicolaou and portfolio theory remain important, in large part motivated by systemic risk of Stanford University and Thaleia new issues have become more pressing. and the growing importance of high- Zariphopoulou of the University of “Directly addressing the quantitative frequency trading.” Texas at Austin in organizing Broad challenges of the industry by providing Perspectives and New Directions in practical solutions and implementations Financial Mathematics, a long program was one of the earliest successes of the held at IPAM this spring. The program, field,” explains René Carmona, the Paul which addressed the stability of the M. Wythes ’55 Professor of Engineering network of financial institutions, and Finance at Princeton University. “In the impact of high-frequency and the early development and explosion of algorithmic trading, the financialization the derivative markets, a mathematician of the commodity markets, and the huge could talk directly to a trader, understand challenges raised by the size and speed what was needed, and develop new of trade data, was distinctive for its mix mathematical tools to help address the of researchers from academia, industry, René Carmona trader’s problems. But the financial crisis and regulatory agencies. Princeton Univ. (continued on page 7)

2 • IPAM Newsletter Fall 2015 IPAM Newsletter Fall 2015 • 3

OPEN PROBLEMS IN MATERIALS SCIENCE CHALLENGE MATH PHD STUDENT

UC Santa Barbara PhD student Silvia Comelli expects to receive from different disciplines often speak about the same things her degree in 2016. using different terms; to remedy this problem, IPAM constantly encouraged the speakers to make their talks accessible to people I first heard about IPAM from my PhD advisor at UCSB, Carlos of other research communities. By the end of the program, I was Garcia-Cervera, who invited me to join him at IPAM for Materials really impressed by how my ability to enter into discussions with for a Sustainable Energy Future, in the fall of 2013. people from other backgrounds had improved. The focus groups in particular helped make this possible. These small, informal groups At that point, my background was mainly in analysis, but I found met weekly to discuss additional, often more specific topics related myself intrigued by the idea of employing my math skills towards to the workshops and facilitated further discussion. the solution of concrete, real-life problems. As I explored this new possibility, Prof. Garcia-Cervera introduced me to the world Finally, during the program, I had the chance to meet with scholars of density functional theory and the mathematical foundation whose work I had been studying over the past year. This was a great for some of the electronic structure models found in quantum opportunity to clarify in person all the details of their research, chemistry and materials science. I spent the year acquiring the which truly helped me progress with my own work. necessary background knowledge of the field.

The emphasis of the IPAM long program was the design of new materials capable of replacing today’s fossil fuel-based infrastructure. I was really impressed by how the program itself was introduced: we have an open problem that needs a solution as soon as possible, so let’s gather all the experts from all possible related disciplines and see if together we can discover a solution. This was exactly the type of problem and approach I sought for my own research! Silvia Comelli I have to admit that I struggled to follow the first few talks. People UC Santa Barbara (continued on page 4) Evolutionary Questions (continued from page 1) how species evolved,” she explains. “My group uses mathematics, together talented participants from a wide variety of disciplines as well as software simulations, to develop methods that will help within mathematics, computer science, statistics, and probability to bring greater accuracy in describing the evolutionary process. over an extended period of time. We prove theorems, but we try to go beyond that to come up with methods that biologists can use.” Following that experience, Warnow agreed to serve as a main organizer and speaker in the 2015 IPAM workshop Multiple For the last several years, Warnow has been involved in a Sequence Alignment, aimed at the emerging biological questions multinational collaboration focusing on how birds evolved. on the function of proteins. “What was fantastic was that we had as “There is a major effort to accurately reconstruct the genome- many biologists as mathematicians and computer scientists at that scale evolution of a species when different parts of the genome workshop,” Warnow says. “It was a great opportunity to engage in have different evolutionary histories, which is a highly challenging a dialogue about the problems that are essential to address, how statistical inference problem,” Warnow explains. Her work our approaches differ, and how we might be able to bring them played an integral role in two papers in a special issue of Science: together to create breakthroughs.” one describing the evolutionary history of birds, and another describing the method her group developed to conduct the The crosstalk that occurs at IPAM meetings is essential when evolutionary reconstruction. attempting to marshal the efforts of multiple disciplines to solve Revolutionary advances in high-throughput technologies, which complex problems, Warnow says. “A lot of people think you just have transformed the field of genomic studies, have also created need to learn the language of the other disciplines,” she notes. “That’s a tremendous need for the development of new mathematical part of it, but more important is to gain an understanding of what and computational infrastructures to meet the challenges of the people in that discipline care about. To do that, you need people analyzing the data, which is both voluminous and more prone who are strong in their discipline, as well as people who either sit in to errors and statistical noise. That’s where Warnow comes in, the middle or have spent a lot of time on the other side. And you and it’s what led her to become involved in 2011 as a speaker need the right people – those who are going to take the time to learn and core participant in IPAM’s long program, Mathematical and and understand other fields. When you have all of those elements, Computational Approaches in High-Throughput Genomics. The and a venue like IPAM where there can be an extended dialogue, program proved fruitful, Warnow believes, because it brought you have the potential to transform the science.” n NEWS AND RECOGNITION

ANDREW LO GIVES 2015 anniversary of IPAM’s first year of JORGE BALBÁS JOINS IPAM AS GREEN FAMILY LECTURES programming. To celebrate, IPAM will ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR host a 15th Anniversary Event on Tuesday, Andrew W. Lo, professor at the MIT October 6, 2015. The afternoon event will Jorge Balbás recently joined IPAM as Sloan School of Management and consist of three talks by former participants Associate Director. Balbás is well-known the director of MIT’s Laboratory for of IPAM programs whose research was to IPAM: as a UCLA graduate student Financial Engineering, visited IPAM greatly influenced by their participation and then as a professor of mathematics at in May to give the 2015 Green Family at IPAM, followed by a reception. For California State University Northridge, Lectures. He gave two talks to the UCLA more information and to register, go to he attended many IPAM workshops and community: “Can Financial Engineering www.ipam.ucla.edu/ann2015. three long programs, and twice served as Cure Cancer? A New Approach to an academic mentor in RIPS. His research Funding Biomedical Innovation” and “WOMEN IN FINANCIAL MATH” is in scientific computing and numerical “Evolutionary Foundations of Economic MEETING HELD AT IPAM analysis. In particular, he is interested Behavior, Bounded Rationality, and in the design and implementation Intelligence”. Videos of both talks are On May 14, 2015, IPAM hosted the of efficient numerical algorithms for available on IPAM’s website and YouTube inaugural conference of Women in solving hyperbolic conservation laws and channel. Andrew Lo is the author of The Financial Mathematics, organized by related time dependent problems. Balbás Econometrics of Financial Markets, A IPAM Trustee Tanya Beder (SBCC Group), replaces outgoing Associate Director Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street, and Xin Guo (UC Berkeley) and Thaleia Skip Garibaldi, who has taken a position Hedge Funds: An Analytic Perspective. Zariphopoulou (Univ. of Texas). Sixty-five at the Center for Communications participants, mostly graduate students Research West. and women working in the financial sector, engaged in panel discussions on topics such as quantitative trading and portfolio allocation, and networking. A second meeting is tentatively scheduled for October 6, 2016, also at IPAM.

Mark Green, Andrew Lo, & Russ Caflisch 2015 Green Family Lectures Jorge Balbás IPAM Associate Director IPAM CELEBRATES RENEWAL, 15TH ANNIVERSARY IPAM WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS Last winter, IPAM was recommended for renewal by the Division of Mathematical IPAM is happy to announce three new Sciences, National Science Foundation. board members who were recruited in The five-year grant, which starts on Women in Financial the past year. Iain Couzin, Director of September 1, 2015, marks the fifteenth Mathematics the Department of Collective Behavior,

Open Problems in Materials Science (continued from page 3) The overall experience was so positive that a year later when Prof. Garcia-Cervera proposed that I participate in IPAM’s 2014 summer school Electronic Structure Theory for Materials and (Bio)-Molecules, I immediately accepted, even though I was nine months pregnant! My research fit perfectly within the topic of the program. Once again, internationally renowned experts as well as junior researchers from different disciplines gathered at IPAM. I reconnected with people I had met the previous year and discussed with them all the progress made in those seven months. Furthermore, I benefited from the summer school’s special attention towards the junior researchers: after the talks held in the morning, we participated in computer-based exercises which gave us a more intimate understanding of what had been presented. Three days before the program ended, I gave birth to my son!

I am grateful to IPAM for organizing these types of programs and giving me the chance to participate. The programs offered me a unique opportunity to acquire a greater understanding of my research by sharing and discussing it with a worldwide community of experts. n

4 • IPAM IPAM Newsletter Newsletter Fall Fall 201 20155 IPAM Newsletter Fall 2015 • 5 CONTINUED FRONTIERS SOCIETY Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 2015 Simons Fellows in Mathematics IPAM turns 15! IPAM and Professor, Department of Biology, included Liliana Borcea (University of will commemorate its University of Konstanz, joined IPAM’s Michigan), Ted Chinburg (University 15th anniversary on Science Advisory Board. Leland of Pennsylvania), and Mitch Luskin Tuesday, October 6 Wilkinson, Vice President of Statistics (University of Minnesota). Finally, with a half-day event of talks, networking at Tableau Software, and Nancy Potok, Kristen Altenburger (Stanford), who and celebration. We Deputy Director and Chief Operating participated in RIPS-Hong Kong as are also introducing Officer of the U.S. Census Bureau, an undergraduate, was a finalist in the a special giving joined the Board of Trustees. IPAM LinkedIn Economic Graph Challenge. opportunity for our is grateful for their service and looks supporters for the anniversary year. For a forward to their participation. IPAM THANKS donation of $1,500, you can name a seat in MICHAEL RAUGH FOR our newly renovated lecture hall. Make this IPAM PARTICIPANTS, 15 YEARS OF RIPS gift soon to be recognized at the anniversary ORGANIZERS, AND BOARD event! MEMBERS RECEIVE AWARDS The Research in Industrial Projects Of course, gifts at all levels are welcome and for Students (RIPS) Program began in support IPAM’s innovative programs, including IPAM wishes to acknowledge the 2001 with Michael Raugh as Director. RIPS, diversity conferences, and scientific following awards and honors bestowed For the next fifteen years, he spent his programs that apply mathematics to real-world upon IPAM participants, organizers, summers as “guest conductor” (as he problems. To read more about the Frontiers and board members in the past year. likes to say) of RIPS, providing essential Society including benefits and fundraising Emmanuel Candès (Stanford) was structure to the program, advising priorities, and to make a contribution to IPAM, go to www.ipam.ucla.edu/donate. presented the AMS-SIAM George the teams on difficult problems, and David Birkhoff Prize in Applied helping them prepare sophisticated Mathematics. Alexander Eskin presentations of their results at 2014-15 MEMBERS (University of Chicago) and Donald Projects Day. On August 18, 2015, Dr. IPAM wishes to thank the following individuals Geman (Johns Hopkins University) Raugh directed his last Projects Day. who joined or renewed their membership in the were elected to the National Academy IPAM and the 429 students and 120 Frontiers Society in the past year: of Sciences. IPAM Trustee Tatiana academic mentors who participated in CHAMPIONS ($1000+) Toro (University of Washington) was RIPS are grateful for his leadership and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Dr. David Balaban devotion to the program. Ms. Tanya Beder and Mr. Joseph H. Bretton Dr. Russel E. Caflisch Dr. Tony F. and Mrs. Monica K. Chan Dr. James C. and Mrs. Diana K. Fraser Mr. James E. Gidney, Jr. Mark L. Green and Kathryn Kert Green Dr. Alfred W. and Mrs. Virginia D. Hales Mr. John W. and Mrs. Jody A. Jacobs Dr. Sallie Keller and Mr. William Safron Dr. Maria P. McGee Dr. Stanley J. Osher Tatiana Toro Mike Raugh Drs. Ronald J. and Sharon S. Stern Univ. of Washington RIPS Director Dr. Frederic Y.M. Wan VISIONARIES ($500-$999) Dr. William Coughran Mr. Michael J. Hathaway CORPORATE GIVING Dr. Leland Wilkinson IPAM offers opportunities for corporations to participate in our scientific programs, INNOVATORS ($100-$499) propose topics for programs, and support activities that promote diversity in math Dr. Adrian Albert and science. IPAM received gifts from the following companies in the past year: Mr. Robert Baker Dr. Allison Chang The Aerospace Corporation Google MathWorks Dr. Maryam Fazel AMD GumGum Microsoft Mr. Nicholas and Ms. Nancy Fortis Dr. John B. and Mrs. Dolores Garnett AstraZeneca HRL Laboratories Raytheon Ms. Valerie Hajdik Disney Animation Studios Intel Symantec Mr. Robert D. and Mrs. Maxine A. Halem Dr. Bryna Kra Dr. Tye Lidman Additional support for IPAM programs came from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Mr. Filip Matejka and Mrs. Zuzana Matejkova J.B. Berland Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LAPD Mr. Tom Nykiel Foundation, Pacific Journal of Mathematics, National Security Agency, and the Dr. Jeffrey Saltzman and Ms. Laurel Rogers USC Shoah Foundation. Mr. Charlie and Mrs. Sandy Schwennesen Mr. James W. Stevenson For more information on corporate giving, go to www.ipam.ucla.edu/donate/corporate-giving. Dr. Tatiana Toro and Mr. Daniel Pollack CALL FOR PROPOSALS UPCOMING PROGRAMS 2015 - 2016 LONG PROGRAMS IPAM seeks proposals from the LONG PROGRAMS mathematical, statistical, and scientific Mathematical Approaches for communities for long programs, Long programs generally have Traffic Flow Management winter workshops, summer programs, two complementary streams: one September 8 - December 11, 2015 and exploratory workshops. Proposals mathematical and one (or more) from are reviewed by IPAM’s Science other related scientific disciplines Culture Analytics Advisory Board (SAB) at its annual where there is the potential for a fruitful March 7 - June 10, 2016 and exciting interaction. Alternatively, meeting in November. To receive this might be an interaction between full consideration, please send your 2016 WORKSHOPS two disparate branches of mathematics. program idea to the IPAM Director at A long program opens with tutorials, Optimization and Equilibrium in [email protected] by October 1. followed by four one-week workshops Energy Economics WINTER WORKSHOPS and a culminating workshop. January 11 - 15, 2016 The proposal should include a brief Winter workshops are typically five days Uncertainty Quantification for description of the topic, names of Multiscale Stochastic Systems in length, with 20-25 presentations. individuals to serve on the organizing and Applications The proposal should include a short committee, and a preliminary list of January 19 - 22, 2016 description of the mathematical and faculty, postdocs, graduate students, scientific content, names of individuals and representatives of industry and Partial Order: Mathematics, to serve on the organizing committee, government you would like to invite. Simulations and Applications and names of individuals that you would A Long Program Proposal Template January 25 - 29, 2016 like to invite as speakers or participants. is available online. Proposals for The SAB will consider proposals for academic year 2017-2018 will be Shape Analysis and Learning by winter 2017 at the upcoming meeting. reviewed at the next SAB meeting. Geometry and Machine February 8 - 12, 2016 SUMMER SCHOOLS EXPLORATORY WORKSHOPS

Algebraic Geometry for Summer schools are generally two or Exploratory workshops address Coding Theory and Cryptography three weeks in length and incorporate urgent problems that mathematics February 22 - 26, 2016 both tutorials (a series of 3-4 talks) and may help solve. They are two or three research talks illustrating applications. days long, and can be organized in 2015 - 2016 OTHER PROGRAMS They are directed toward graduate less than a year. The proposal should students and postdocs. The requirements follow the guidelines for Winter IPAM’s 15th Anniversary Event for summer school proposals are Workshops, above, and will be October 6, 2015 comparable to those for winter considered at any time. Research in Industrial Projects for Students workshops. The SAB will consider • Los Angeles, June 20 - August 19, 2016 proposals for summer 2016 in November. • Hong Kong, June 6 - August 5, 2016 • Berlin, June 27 - August 19, 2016 2016 - 2017 LONG PROGRAMS Mark Your Calendars Understanding Many-Particle October 6, 2015. Attend IPAM’s 15th Anniversary Event! Systems with Machine Learning September 12 - December 16, 2016 October 7, 2015. Workshop on Advancing Traffic Control through Big Data and Connectivity. This mini-workshop during the Traffic long program includes Computational Issues in a field trip to the Los Angeles Regional Transportation Management Center. Oil Field Applications March 20 - June 9, 2017 November 12, 2015. Public lecture by Sadasivan (Sadas) Shankar, visiting lecturer at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, entitled “Missing in Translation – Where are the Innovations?”

February 14, 2016. Application deadline for IPAM’s Research in Industrial Stay Connected Projects for Students (RIPS) Programs in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Berlin.

May 9-10, 2016. The 2016 Green Family Lecture Series will feature , James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics at Duke University.

6 • IPAM IPAM Newsletter Newsletter Fall Fall 201 20155 IPAM Newsletter Fall 2015 • 7 Financial Mathematics (continued from page 2) Prior to the financial crisis, Carmona Carmona argues, is the enormous influx “We wanted this program to provide notes, regulators, academics, and industry of money in commodities as institutional an opportunity for young researchers leaders had been concerned about systemic investors seek to diversify their portfolios. looking to apply mathematics to the risk in the context of the vulnerability to This financialization of commodities world of finance, and to learn about the terrorism – the 9/11 attack had disrupted has led to spectacular booms and busts state of the art in these emerging sub- some of the connections in the complex, of crude oil, wheat, and other critically fields. Our goal was to help them define interdependent financial network,important commodities, and has caused what the future of financial mathematics bringing the system to a temporary halt. economists and regulators to worry will be, and we are very pleased with the After the crisis, the notion of systemic that the pricing of these items is being results,” says Carmona. “There is still a risk shifted to concern about dangers driven by speculation as opposed to lot of interest in the classical financial from the inside, creating a major field of fundamentals such as the equilibrium mathematics we practiced in the 1980s study for financial mathematicians. “We between supply and demand. and 1990s, but innovation in financial have to understand this huge network, mathematics and the future of the field and how one default can create a cascade The IPAM program featured four weeklong may not lie exclusively in these traditional that jeopardizes the health of the entire workshops designed to address these topics. It is vital to the future of our system,” Carmona explains. concerns. The first focused on systemic financial system that mathematicians take risk and the structure and stability of ownership of the quantitative challenges Independent of the crisis, Carmona and the networks underlying the financial driven by new trends in the industry, and his colleagues saw that the tremendous system, as well as how the system can go develop theoretical and computational growth in high-frequency trading was awry. The second explored the issue of tools that are needed to understand and not being sufficiently accompanied by optimal execution in the high-frequency control these processes.” n the development of mathematics to trading markets. The third looked at understand and guide these activities. the financialization of commodities, “As much as 70-80 percent of the trades including the impact of the regulation of taking place nowadays are done on these markets and of the recent moves by electronic platforms, not by ‘open outcry’ investment banks to pull out of the physical- or over the phone. Consequently, the commodity market. The final workshop traditional definitions of broker-dealers, was more speculative, focusing on the intermediaries and traders need to be role mathematics could play in analyzing, revisited,” Carmona says. “Mathematical understanding, and ultimately preventing, models that were successful in the late major mishaps in the financial industry. 70s, 80s and 90s may not be appropriate Its focus on the analysis of financial data for today’s algorithmic trading, especially brought together mathematicians, data at the microsecond level.” scientists and regulators from several agencies, with a lecture by the Chairman of Yet another development requiring more the National Transportation Safety Board attention from the research community, setting the stage.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD IPAM DIRECTORS

David Balaban, Amgen Alexei Borodin, MIT Russel Caflisch, Director Tanya Beder, SBCC Group Inc. Robert Calderbank, Duke University Jorge Balbás, Associate Director Tony Chan, Hong Kong University Emmanuel Candes, Stanford University Christian Ratsch, Associate Director of Science and Technology Iain Couzin, Max Planck Institute Stanley Osher, Director of Special Projects Bill Coughran, Sequoia Capital for Ornithology Karina Edmonds, Caltech Cynthia Dwork, Microsoft Research Mark Green, UCLA Peter W. Jones, Yale University NEWSLETTER Alfred Hales (Chair), Center for Yann LeCun, University Stacy Orozco, Editor/Designer Communications Research West David Levermore (Chair), University Stacey Beggs, Silvia Comelli, Sallie Keller, Virginia Tech University of Maryland and Dan Gordon, Contributors Bryna Kra, Northwestern University Assaf Naor, Princeton University Alan Lee, AMD Terence Tao, UCLA Nancy Potok, U.S. Census Bureau Claire Tomlin, UC Berkeley Ronald Stern, UC Irvine Amie Wilkinson, University of Chicago Tatiana Toro, University of Washington Stephen Wright, University of Wisconsin Leland Wilkinson, Tableau Software Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics a National Science Foundation Math Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles

405 Hilgard Avenue Box 957121, 460 Portola Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095 p: 310-825-4755 f: 310-825-4756 www.ipam.ucla.edu

IPAM LONG PROGRAM: CULTURE ANALYTICS

The explosion in use of the Internet and social media and the low cost of computing power have increased the possibilities for understanding cultural behaviors and expressions. The “digital footprints” that people leave as they access these virtual spaces offer a treasure trove of cultural information, where culture is defined as expressions of the norms, beliefs and values of a group.

In the spring of 2016, IPAM’s long program on Culture Analytics will encourage the exploration of the mathematical opportunities that are emerging in this cultural information space. Many successful approaches to the analysis of cultural content and activities have been developed, yet there is still a great deal of work to be done. The program aims to promote collaboration across disciplines and devise new approaches and novel mathematics to address the issues of culture analytics. IPAM seeks emerging and leading scholars in the social sciences and humanities as well as those in mathematics, engineering, and computer science to participate in this effort. n