Thu 02 Oct 14:15: Around Fulton-MacPherson compactifications
The talk will be about complex Fulton-MacPherson compactifications and their relation to the resolution of singularities of Hilbert schemes of points and the universality of their intersection theory, the Hilbert-Chow crepant resolution conjecture, and the GW/DT correspondence.
- Speaker: Denis Nesterov, ETH Zurich
- Thursday 02 October 2025, 14:15-15:15
- Venue: CMS MR9.
- Series: Algebraic Geometry Seminar; organiser: Dhruv Ranganathan.
Wed 22 Oct 16:00: An exotic Dehn twist after two stabilizations
Unlike in higher dimensions, most exotic phenomena on simply-connected 4-manifolds are unstable; they become non-exotic after finitely many stabilizations. While we now know that some of them survive one stabilization, nothing is known about their behavior when we stabilize them more than once. In this talk, we present the first example of an exotic diffeomorphism on a smooth contractible 4-manifold, given as a boundary Dehn twist along its (nontrivial) boundary, which stays exotic after two stabilizations. This is an ongoing joint work with JungHwan Park and Masaki Taniguchi.
- Speaker: Sungkyung Kang (Cambridge)
- Wednesday 22 October 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Differential Geometry and Topology Seminar; organiser: Oscar Randal-Williams.
Mon 13 Oct 11:00: LMB Seminar - Quorum Sensing Across Domains: From Viruses to Bacteria to Eukaryotes
Bacteria communicate with one another via the production and detection of secreted signal molecules called autoinducers. This cell-to-cell communication process, called “Quorum Sensing”, allows bacteria to synchronize behavior on a population-wide scale. We showed that behaviors controlled by quorum sensing are ones that are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium acting alone but become effective when undertaken in unison by the group. For example, quorum sensing controls virulence factor production and biofilm formation. We found that eukaryotes that harbor quorum-sensing bacteria participate in these chemical conversations by providing the substrates bacteria need to make autoinducers. We also discovered that quorum-sensing autoinducer information can be hijacked by viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Thus, interactions across the eukaryotic, bacterial, and viral domains all rely on quorum sensing. Presumably, each entity in these combined beneficial and parasitic partnerships is garnering the information encoded in quorum-sensing autoinducers to optimize its survival and reproduction. Using what we have learned, we have built quorum-sensing disruption strategies for development into new anti-microbials. We have also engineered viruses to respond to user-defined inputs, rather than the bacterial autoinducers, to make phage therapies that kill particular bacterial pathogens on demand.
- Speaker: Bonnie Bassler, Princeton University
- Monday 13 October 2025, 11:00-12:00
- Venue: In person in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre (CB2 0QH) and via Zoom link https://mrc-lmb-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/99006584805?pwd=yFgF0P1zMvOJEKkOES4eNPpntaUodk.1.
- Series: MRC LMB Seminar Series; organiser: Scientific Meetings Co-ordinator.
Tue 07 Oct 11:00: Compositional Verification of Cryptographic Proofs in Lean
Succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs) are short, easily verifiable proofs that an untrusted party executed a computation correctly. They are nearing wide adoption for applications like private identity verification and blockchain scaling, yet subtle bugs in their design and implementation remain common, with severe consequences if exploited.
In this talk, I present ongoing work on ArkLib, an open-source Lean library for building SNAR Ks with machine-checked guarantees of completeness and soundness. At the core of ArkLib is a formalization of Interactive Oracle Reductions (IORs), a recent abstraction that unifies reasoning about common SNARK building blocks. By decomposing complex proof systems into a series of IORs between simpler relations, ArkLib enables modular specifications and security proofs: we can verify components in isolation and systematically lift their guarantees to full protocols.
I will walk through ArkLib’s verification methodology on a representative example, the sum-check protocol, and close with how AI tools and open collaboration are speeding up the library’s development.
- Speaker: Quang Dao (CMU)
- Tuesday 07 October 2025, 11:00-12:00
- Venue: LT2, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: lads2's list; organiser: Léo Stefanesco.
Thu 27 Nov 13:00: Opening the Gate: How Structural Insights into Brain Receptors Could Guide New Therapies
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Stephanie Nestorow, Department of Pharmacology
- Thursday 27 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 20 Nov 13:00: Novel Technologies for Future Broadband Access Networks
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Fady El-Nahal
- Thursday 20 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 13 Nov 13:00: Deuterium metabolic imaging at 7 Tesla
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Masha Novoselova, Department of Clinical Neurosciences
- Thursday 13 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 06 Nov 13:00: Bumblebees and honeybees in shared landscapes
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Nynke Blömer, Department of Zoology
- Thursday 06 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 30 Oct 13:00: The Unseen Architects of Cancer's Destruction: Fibroblasts and Cachexia
Patients with pancreatic cancer often battle cachexia which leads to extreme weight and muscle loss. Despite its severity, cachexia remains without a cure. I focus on fibroblasts (non-cancerous cells in pancreatic tumours known to influence cancer growth) to understand how these cells may drive cachexia and whether we can build therapies to target them.
- Speaker: Debasmita Mukherjee, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute
- Thursday 30 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 23 Oct 13:00: Golgi Bodies in Drosophila Somatosensory Neurons
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Shubham Kumar, MRC Molecular Biology
- Thursday 23 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: 1 Newnham Terrace, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 16 Oct 13:00: Looking for hidden messages in our DNA
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Ioannis Sarropoulos, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
- Thursday 16 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Thu 09 Oct 13:00: Examining the promises of chemical plastic recycling
Recycling is often touted as the primary way for people to reduce plastic waste. However, there are significant limitations to the extent to which recycling can actually help, even in terms of the fundamental chemistry of plastic recycling. In this Lunchtime Seminar, I will describe some of the predominant strategies for recycling that are being explored and also efforts to design plastics for easier recycling. In addition to the chemistry, I will also address the limitations of these methods as meaningful solutions for waste reduction.
- Speaker: Alex R Epstein (Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge)
- Thursday 09 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Richard King room, Darwin College.
- Series: Darwin College Science Seminars; organiser: Alexander R Epstein.
Tue 18 Nov 11:15: Insights into the Epoch of Reionization from galaxies in the first billion years
Abstract TBC
- Speaker: Dr. Lily Whitler (Kavli Institute for Cosmology)
- Tuesday 18 November 2025, 11:15-12:00
- Venue: Coffee area, Battcock Centre.
- Series: Hills Coffee Talks; organiser: Charles Walker.
Thu 16 Oct 14:30: A resolution of the Aharoni--Korman conjecture
The Aharoni—Korman conjecture, also known as the fishbone conjecture, states that any poset contains a chain C and a partition into antichains such that C meets every antichain in the partition. Our results are twofold. Firstly, we construct a poset for which the conjecture is false. Secondly, we demonstrate that this counterexample is, in some sense, minimal, giving a strong positive result which shows that the conjecture is true if one makes an additional assumption about the structure of the poset.
- Speaker: Lawrence Hollom (Cambridge)
- Thursday 16 October 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR12.
- Series: Combinatorics Seminar; organiser: ibl10.
Thu 16 Oct 14:30: A resolution of the Aharoni--Korman conjecture
The Aharoni—Korman conjecture, also known as the fishbone conjecture, states that any poset contains a chain C and a partition into antichains such that C meets every antichain in the partition. Our results are twofold. Firstly, we construct a poset for which the conjecture is false. Secondly, we demonstrate that this counterexample is, in some sense, minimal, giving a strong positive result which shows that the conjecture is true if one makes an additional assumption about the structure of the poset.
- Speaker: Lawrence Hollom (Cambridge)
- Thursday 16 October 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR12.
- Series: Combinatorics Seminar; organiser: HoD Secretary, DPMMS.
Tue 11 Nov 11:15: Creating a physically accurate CEM model of the REACH for global 21-cm cosmology
Abstract TBC
- Speaker: Dr. John Cumner (Cavendish Astrophysics)
- Tuesday 11 November 2025, 11:15-12:00
- Venue: Coffee area, Battcock Centre.
- Series: Hills Coffee Talks; organiser: Charles Walker.
Tue 04 Nov 16:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: VP Nguyen, UMass Amherst
- Tuesday 04 November 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Online.
- Series: Mobile and Wearable Health Seminar Series; organiser: Cecilia Mascolo.
Tue 21 Oct 16:00: Intelligent Mobile Systems for an Aging World https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/86567583355?pwd=Q1wlHuwvFXEdDNuGybH43v8ozcYAYO.1
By 2050, older adults will make up about 22% of the global population, driving an urgent need for accessible and reliable health technologies. In this talk, I will present our work on intelligent mobile systems designed for older adults. The first leverages compact AI-enabled radios for cardiovascular monitoring, including blood pressure. The second is an ambient sensing system that uses smart devices to detect emergent, life-threatening events such as cardiac arrest. The third enables low-cost health screening using everyday earphones and wireless earbuds. Through these examples, I will show how computational and sensing techniques that generalize across hardware and operate in real-world environments can address pressing societal challenges.
Bio Justin is an assistant professor in CS and ECE at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directs the Semantic Signals Lab. His work focuses on AI-enabled digital health systems with a focus on wireless and mobile technologies. His innovations include using smartphone sensors for blood clot testing, training smart speakers to detect cardiac arrests, wireless earbuds that screen for newborn hearing loss, and detection of middle ear fluid using active sonar on smartphones and a paper cone. He earned his PhD at the University of Washington and his work has been recognized by CACM and SIGMOBILE Research Highlights, SIGMOBILE Doctoral Dissertation Award Runner Up, and a IEEE Pervasive Computing Emerging Rockstar feature.
https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/86567583355?pwd=Q1wlHuwvFXEdDNuGybH43v8ozcYAYO.1
- Speaker: Justin Chan, Carnegie Mellon University
- Tuesday 21 October 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Online.
- Series: Mobile and Wearable Health Seminar Series; organiser: Cecilia Mascolo.
Thu 16 Oct 16:30: Outside the brain: how glial cells orchestrate tissue immunity Note unusual time
Host: Dr Noe Rodriguez
Note unusual time
- Speaker: Dr Fränze Progatzky, Principal Investigator in Tissue Biology, Kennedy Institute, Oxford
- Thursday 16 October 2025, 16:30-17:30
- Venue: Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre, Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
- Series: Cambridge Immunology Network Seminar Series; organiser: Liat Churley.
Wed 11 Mar 15:05: Title to be confirmed
Abstract to be confirmed
Link to join virtually: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/89473073451
This talk is being recorded. If you do not wish to be seen in the recording, please avoid sitting in the front three rows of seats in the lecture theatre. Any questions asked will also be included in the recording. The recording will be made available on the Department’s webpage
- Speaker: Dr Rika Antonova - Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge
- Wednesday 11 March 2026, 15:05-15:55
- Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building.
- Series: Wednesday Seminars - Department of Computer Science and Technology ; organiser: Ben Karniely.