Fri 13 Jun 14:00: Title to be confirmed
Peter C. Collins joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University in July, 2015. Dr. Pete Collins received his undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla, and his MS and PhD from The Ohio State University in Materials Science and Engineering. Prior to joining ISU , Dr. Collins served as a faculty member and undergraduate coordinator in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas. Dr. Collins has also spent time standing-up a not-for-profit 501-3© manufacturing laboratory, and regularly engages with both industry and the government. His experiences and interests involve the practical and theoretical treatments of microstructure-property relationship, with an extension into composition-microstructure-property relationships derived for complex multi-phase, multi-component engineering alloys. He has extensive experience in participating in large industrial programs, has conducted studies into novel metal matrix composites, and has significant research experience with additive manufacturing techniques, and combinatorial materials science. Dr. Collins is an active member of TMS , past chairman of the ICME committee, member of the Titanium committee, and a member of the Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division. In recent years, Collins and his group have been actively involved in developing and building new types of instrumentation and experiments. These include developing the first 3D SRAS (spatially resolved acoustic spectroscopy) microscope, bicombinatorial techniques, reduced-cost wire-fed metal AM systems, and other techniques aimed at characterizing defects in additive manufactured materials.
- Speaker: Dr Peter C. Collins, Iowa State University
- Friday 13 June 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Oatley 1 Meeting Room, Department of Engineering.
- Series: Engineering - Mechanics and Materials Seminar Series; organiser: div-c.
Tue 03 Jun 16:00: Computational wireless sensing for Health Zoom: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/82442600092?pwd=DfDLE12p2Kmnh532rSMVB8mOn7uLDa.1
Abstract: Mobile computing technologies have advanced substantially over the last two decades. Today, the smart devices enabled by economies of scale, incorporate high-quality wireless sensors such as acoustic and RF sensors and the trend shows an increase in both the quantity and quality of these sensors. These sensors can be leveraged to enable a contactless passive monitoring of physiological signals of subjects and early diagnoses of various health conditions. In this talk, I will present a privacy aware wireless sensing technology to enable equitable, passive contactless monitoring of breathing and heart rate signals to detect opioid overdose in a timely manner.
Bio: Rajalakshmi Nandakumar is an Assistant Professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and in the Information Science department at Cornell University. She received her Ph.D. from University of Washington in Computer Science and Engineering in 2019. Her research focuses on developing wireless sensing technologies that enable novel applications in various domains including mobile health, user interfaces and IoT networks. She developed the first contactless smartphone-based sleep apnea diagnosis system that was licensed by ResMed Inc. and now used by millions of users for sleep staging. She was recognized with the UW Medicine Judy Su Clinical Research award, Paul Baran Young Scholar award by the Marconi Society and also named as the rising star in EECS by MIT .
Zoom: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/82442600092?pwd=DfDLE12p2Kmnh532rSMVB8mOn7uLDa.1
- Speaker: Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, Cornell University
- Tuesday 03 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Online.
- Series: Mobile and Wearable Health Seminar Series; organiser: Cecilia Mascolo.
Thu 29 May 14:00: Perceptual quality metric and loss function for 3D and temporal consistency
To better train and evaluate 3D reconstruction methods (NeRF, Gaussian Splatting) or 3D generative models, both for static (3D) and dynamic (4D) scenes, we will develop a new full-reference quality metric and no-reference loss function. Those will be trained and validated on a new 4D quality dataset, with the subjective quality measured in stereoscopic presentation (e.g., on a VR headset). The developed techniques will improve 3D and temporal consistency of the rendered views, resulting in fewer temporal artefacts. They will also allow automatic hyper-parameter tuning and more reliable evaluation and comparison of 3D rendering techniques.
- Speaker: Fei Yin, University of Cambridge
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: SS03 - William Gates Building.
- Series: Rainbow Group Seminars; organiser: Yancheng Cai.
Thu 29 May 14:00: Streaming of rendered content with adaptive frame rate and resolution
Streaming rendered content is an attractive way to bring high-quality graphics to billions of mobile devices that do not have sufficient rendering power. Existing solutions render content on a server at a fixed frame rate, typically 30 or 60 frames per second, and reduce resolution when bandwidth is restricted. Here, we argue that when streaming graphics content with fast motion, higher quality is achieved when both the frame rate and the resolution are adjusted dynamically based on the content and its motion. We propose a system in which a small neural network predicts the optimal frame rate and resolution for a given transmission bandwidth, content, and motion velocity. This prediction maximizes perceived rendering quality and reduces computational cost under constrained transmission bandwidth. The network is trained on a large dataset of rendered content, which was labeled with a perceptual video quality metric.
- Speaker: Yaru Liu, University of Cambridge
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: SS03 - William Gates Building.
- Series: Rainbow Group Seminars; organiser: Yancheng Cai.
Mon 02 Jun 14:00: Overhanging solitary water waves
We construct gravity water waves with constant vorticity having the approximate form of a disk joined to a strip by a thin neck. This is the first rigorous existence result for such waves, which have been seen in numerics since the 80s and 90s. Our method is related to the construction of constant mean curvature surfaces through gluing, and involves combining three explicit solutions to related problems: a disk of fluid in rigid rotation, a linear shear flow in a strip, and a rescaled version of an exceptional domain discovered by Hauswirth, Hélein, and Pacard.
This is joint work with Juan Dávila, Manuel del Pino, and Monica Musso.
- Speaker: Miles H. Wheeler (University of Bath)
- Monday 02 June 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Partial Differential Equations seminar; organiser: Giacomo Ageno.
Wed 11 Jun 16:30: Statistics Clinic Easter 2025 IV
This free event is open only to members of the University of Cambridge (and affiliated institutes). Please be aware that we are unable to offer consultations outside clinic hours.
If you would like to participate, please sign up as we will not be able to offer a consultation otherwise. Please sign up through the following link: https://forms.gle/LRpZfdSm4T9E8NBv9. Sign-up is possible from June 5 midday (12pm) until June 9 midday or until we reach full capacity, whichever is earlier. If you successfully signed up, we will confirm your appointment by June 11 midday.
- Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
- Wednesday 11 June 2025, 16:30-18:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Cambridge Statistics Clinic; organiser: tm681.
Wed 04 Jun 11:00: Exploring charge density waves in twisted bilayer NbSe2 with machine learning
Niobium diselenide has garnered significant attention over the past few decades because of the coexis tence of superconductivity and charge density waves (CDWs), observable down to the monolayer limit. Introducing relative twist angles between monolayers, in the field of twistronics, offers a new variable to tune these systems, yet a fundamental question remains: do CDWs persist in moiré structures, and how are they altered compared to the pristine monolayer/bilayer? Traditional first-principles methods face limitations due to the computational resources required for long-wavelength moiré patterns; for instance, a 1-degree twist angle necessitates modeling over 10,000 atoms, making simulations impractical. This study employs first-principles data to develop machine learning interatomic potentials with the Allegro architecture, enabling scalable and accurate simulations. We investigate the formation and evolution of CDW order in monolayers and twisted bilayers, validating our results against density functional theory calculations with minimal errors in energy and forces. Beyond niobium diselenide, our goal is to establish a protocol for studying CDWs in two-dimensional systems. We outline strategies for producing training data and perform a detailed hyperparameter scan to identify key aspects for studying these systems [1].
- Norma Rivano et al. arXiv.2504.13675 2025
- Speaker: Dr Zac Goodwin (Oxford)
- Wednesday 04 June 2025, 11:00-11:50
- Venue: Seminar Room 3, RDC.
- Series: Theory of Condensed Matter; organiser: Bo Peng.
Wed 18 Jun 15:00: Metabolic control of myeloid cell function
The seminar will address our latest published and unpublished work on how mitochondrial function controls homeostasis and inflammatory response in macrophages and dendritic cells. In addition, I will present unpublished data on a microbial metabolite that modulates macrophages to induce inflammation and is associated and causal for the development of atherosclerosis.
- Speaker: Professor David Sancho Madrid, Spanish Center for Cardiovascular Research
- Wednesday 18 June 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: MRC MBU, Level 7 Lecture Theatre, The Keith Peters Building, CB2 0XY.
- Series: MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit Seminars; organiser: Lisa Arnold.
Wed 04 Jun 14:30: An Introduction to Neurodiversity
People will have increasingly heard the term Neurodiversity. Some may know what it means but many are still unsure or scared to ask. In my talk I try to explain the basics of Neurodiversity, dispel some common misconceptions and give some of my own experiences. I will also give you some ideas for how to accommodate Neurodivergent people and where to look for support.
Scott is an experienced battery scientist, science communicator, budding entrepreneur and Neurodiversity advocate. He has worked in academia, RTOs and an SME on a broad range of battery chemistries and applications. He is presently exploring his own ventures in a variety of sectors under the branding “Watts Up With…?”. Scott is Neurodivergent. He has Autism, Dyslexia and (pending diagnosis) ADHD . This combination of traits and experiences gives him a deep understanding of what it is like to be a Neurodivergent individual in academic/work environments.
- Speaker: Dr Scott Gorman
- Wednesday 04 June 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: Unilever Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry.
- Series: Extra Theoretical Chemistry Seminars; organiser: Lisa Masters.
Thu 05 Jun 15:00: Splitting and Cayley-splitting integrators for Schödinger equations
We consider the numerical integration of semi-discretised Schrödinger equations requiring the computation of the exponential of a (skew-)Hermitian matrix acting on a vector. This is usually achieved by polynomial methods such as Taylor, Krylov or Chebyshev, which are conditionally stable. However, the skew-Hermitian matrix is usually separable into solvable parts, and tailored splitting methods can be used which preserve unitarity and they are unconditionally stable. In addition, their accuracy does not seem to deteriorate when considering a finer mesh, unlike polynomial methods. However, resonances may appear. We analyse where resonances come from and how to reduce their undesirable effects. As an alternative, we also analyse Cayley-splitting methods: they are unitary (unconditionally stable) methods, they can avoid the resonances and, in many cases, they are considerably cheaper to compute than the exponential splitting methods. Some numerical examples will illustrate the potential interest of the splitting methods as well as the new family of Cayley-splitting methods.
- Speaker: Sergio Blanes (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia)
- Thursday 05 June 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Centre for Mathematical Sciences, MR14.
- Series: Applied and Computational Analysis; organiser: Georg Maierhofer.
Thu 26 Jun 15:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Jianbo Cui (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
- Thursday 26 June 2025, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Centre for Mathematical Sciences, MR14.
- Series: Applied and Computational Analysis; organiser: Georg Maierhofer.
Fri 20 Jun 16:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Professor Allan McRobie, CUED
- Friday 20 June 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: JDB Seminar Room, CUED.
- Series: Engineering - Dynamics and Vibration Tea Time Talks; organiser: div-c.
Fri 30 May 13:00: Gravitational Wave Signatures of Dark Matter in Neutron Star Mergers
Binary neutron star mergers provide insights into strong-field gravity and the properties of ultra-dense nuclear matter. These events offer the potential to search for signatures of physics beyond the standard model, including dark matter. We present the first numerical-relativity simulations of binary neutron star mergers admixed with dark matter, based on constraint-solved initial data. Modeling dark matter as a non-interacting fermionic gas, we investigate the impact of varying dark matter fractions and particle masses on the merger dynamics, ejecta mass, post-merger remnant properties, and the emitted gravitational waves. Our simulations suggest that the dark matter morphology – a dense core or a diluted halo – may alter the merger outcome. Scenarios with a dark matter core tend to exhibit a higher probability of prompt collapse, while those with a dark matter halo develop a common envelope, embedding the whole binary. Furthermore, gravitational wave signals from mergers with dark matter halo configurations exhibit significant deviations from standard models when the tidal deformability is calculated in a two-fluid framework neglecting the dilute and extended nature of the halo. This highlights the need for refined models in calculating the tidal deformability when considering mergers with extended dark matter structures. These initial results provide a basis for further exploration of dark matter’s role in binary neutron star mergers and their associated gravitational wave emission and can serve as a benchmark for future observations from advanced detectors and multi-messenger astrophysics.
- Speaker: Violetta Sagun, University of Southampton
- Friday 30 May 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR9/Zoom https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/87235967698.
- Series: DAMTP Friday GR Seminar; organiser: Xi Tong.
Tue 19 Aug 14:00: Quantum Hydrodynamics
The complex behavior of interacting many-body quantum systems continues to challenge contemporary researchers. In particular, inferring edge dynamics from bulk properties, which typically relies on a bulk-boundary correspondence, remains an unsolved problem in many condensed matter systems. Most edge theories are derived by integrating out bulk matter fields, leaving behind a theory that describes only the edge degrees of freedom. Alternatively, when a suitable hydrodynamic theory for the system is developed, the relationship between bulk matter fields and edge dynamics naturally follows from “classical” hydrodynamic boundary conditions, such as no-penetration and no-stress.
If a system admits an effective theory in terms of a single complex scalar, such as an order parameter or wavefunction, constructing a hydrodynamic theory becomes straightforward, with boundary conditions arising directly from conservation laws. In this talk I will outline this general process and apply the formalism to three illustrative examples. Fractional Quantum Hall fluids offer insights into hydrodynamic Chern-Simons theories, while polariton fluids motivate the introduction of dissipative effects. Integer quantum Hall states of bosons, representing a type of symmetry-protected topological phase, are effectively described by a two-fluid model which leads to a broader class of boundary conditions and edge modes. Time permitting, I will discuss how this framework may also shed light on turbulence in both quantum and classical systems.
- Speaker: Dylan Reynolds, ICTS Bangalore
- Tuesday 19 August 2025, 14:00-15:30
- Venue: Seminar Room 3, RDC.
- Series: Theory of Condensed Matter; organiser: Gaurav.
Thu 29 May 11:30: James Sear - Plumes in Turbulence Ross Shepherd — Efficiency of CO2 storage in aquifers
James Sear, IEEF - Plumes in Turbulence
Ross Shepherd, IEEF — Efficiency of CO2 storage in aquifers
- Speaker: James Sear and Ross Shepherd, IEEF
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 11:30-12:30
- Venue: Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.
- Series: Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF); organiser: Catherine Pearson.
Thu 29 May 17:00: Universal Diophantine Equations in Isabelle
If you have a question about this talk, please contact Anand Rao Tadipatri.
Abstract: In this talk I will present the formalisation of a universal construction of Diophantine equations with bounded complexity in Isabelle/HOL. This is a formalisation of my own work in number theory.
Hilbert’s Tenth Problem (H10) was answered negatively by Yuri Matiyasevich, who showed that there is no general algorithm to decide whether an arbitrary Diophantine equation has a solution. I will give an introduction to Hilbert’s Problem and its original solution. Moreover, I will motivate and give the key idea of the stronger version of H10 which we formalised. Finally, I will talk about the various challenges that came up during the formalisation and, more importantly, the insights we drew from formalising our yet-unpublished, unpolished manuscript.
This is joint work with Marco David, Timothé Ringeard, Xavier Pigé, Anna Danilkin, Mathis Bouverot-Dupuis, Paul Wang, Quentin Vermande, Theo Andrée, Loïc Chevalier, Charlotte Dorneich, Eva Brenner, Chris Ye, Kevin Lee, Malte Haßler, Simon Dubischar, Thomas Serafini, Dierk Schleicher and Yuri Matiyasevich.
=== Hybrid talk ===
Join Zoom Meeting https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/89856091954?pwd=Bba77QB2KuTideTlH6PjAmbXLO8HbY.1
Meeting ID: 898 5609 1954 Passcode: ITPtalk
- Speaker: Jonas Bayer (University of Cambridge)
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 17:00-18:00
- Venue: MR14 Centre for Mathematical Sciences.
- Series: Formalisation of mathematics with interactive theorem provers ; organiser: Jonas Bayer.
Thu 29 May 14:00: Perceptual quality metric and loss function for 3D and temporal consistency
To better train and evaluate 3D reconstruction methods (NeRF, Gaussian Splatting) or 3D generative models, both for static (3D) and dynamic (4D) scenes, we will develop a new full-reference quality metric and no-reference loss function. Those will be trained and validated on a new 4D quality dataset, with the subjective quality measured in stereoscopic presentation (e.g., on a VR headset). The developed techniques will improve 3D and temporal consistency of the rendered views, resulting in fewer temporal artefacts. They will also allow automatic hyper-parameter tuning and more reliable evaluation and comparison of 3D rendering techniques.
- Speaker: Fei Yin, University of Cambridge
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Webinar (via Zoom online) ID: 87457263100 Passcode: 708172.
- Series: Rainbow Group Seminars; organiser: Yancheng Cai.
Tue 03 Jun 11:00: Discovering reward-guided learning strategies from large-scale datasets
Understanding the neural mechanisms of reward-guided learning is a long-standing goal of computational neuroscience. Recent methodological innovations enable us to collect ever larger neural and behavioral datasets. This presents opportunities to achieve greater understanding of learning in the brain at scale, as well as methodological challenges. In the first part of the talk, I will discuss our recent insights into the mechanisms by which zebra finch songbirds learn to sing. Dopamine has been long thought to guide reward-based trial-and-error learning by encoding reward prediction errors. However, it is unknown whether the learning of natural behaviours, such as developmental vocal learning, occurs through dopamine-based reinforcement. Longitudinal recordings of dopamine and bird songs reveal that dopamine activity is indeed consistent with encoding a reward prediction error during naturalistic learning.
In the second part of the talk, I will talk about recent work we are doing at DeepMind to develop tools for automatically discovering interpretable models of behavior directly from animal choice data. Our method, dubbed CogFunSearch, uses LLMs within an evolutionary search process in order to “discover” novel models in the form of Python programs that excel at accurately predicting animal behavior during reward-guided learning. The discovered programs reveal novel patterns of learning and choice behavior that update our understanding of how the brain solves reinforcement learning problems.
- Speaker: Kimberly Stachenfeld (DeepMind, Columbia)
- Tuesday 03 June 2036, 11:00-12:30
- Venue: CBL Seminar Room, Engineering Department, 4th floor Baker building.
- Series: Computational Neuroscience; organiser: Daniel Kornai.
Thu 29 May 14:00: Streaming of rendered content with adaptive frame rate and resolution
Streaming rendered content is an attractive way to bring high-quality graphics to billions of mobile devices that do not have sufficient rendering power. Existing solutions render content on a server at a fixed frame rate, typically 30 or 60 frames per second, and reduce resolution when bandwidth is restricted. Here, we argue that when streaming graphics content with fast motion, higher quality is achieved when both the frame rate and the resolution are adjusted dynamically based on the content and its motion. We propose a system in which a small neural network predicts the optimal frame rate and resolution for a given transmission bandwidth, content, and motion velocity. This prediction maximizes perceived rendering quality and reduces computational cost under constrained transmission bandwidth. The network is trained on a large dataset of rendered content, which was labeled with a perceptual video quality metric.
- Speaker: Yaru Liu, University of Cambridge
- Thursday 29 May 2025, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Webinar (via Zoom online) ID: 87457263100 Passcode: 708172.
- Series: Rainbow Group Seminars; organiser: Yancheng Cai.
Wed 11 Jun 13:00: But what is 'performativity of science'?
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Jakob Ortmann (Leibniz University, Hannover)
- Wednesday 11 June 2025, 13:00-14:30
- Venue: Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
- Series: CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) seminar; organiser: Miguel Ohnesorge.