The C&O department has 36 faculty members and 60 graduate students. We are intensely research oriented and hold a strong international reputation in each of our six major areas:
- Algebraic combinatorics
- Combinatorial optimization
- Continuous optimization
- Cryptography
- Graph theory
- Quantum computing
Read more about the department's research to learn of our contributions to the world of mathematics!
News
Prof. Alfred Menezes is named Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Researc
The Fellows program, which was established in 2004, is awarded to no more than 0.25% of the IACR’s 3000 members each year and recognizes “outstanding IACR members for technical and professional contributions to cryptologic research.”
C&O student Ava Pun receives Jessie W. H. Zou Memorial Award
She received the award in recognition of her research on simulating virtual training environments for autonomous vehicles, which she conducted at the start-up Waabi.
Jeremy Chiwezer wins Governor General's Gold Medal
The Governor General’s Gold Medal is one of the highest student honours awarded by the University of Waterloo.
Events
Algebraic Graph Theory - Wei Wang
Title: Which graphs are determined by their total numbers of walks?
Speaker: | Wei Wang |
Affiliation: | Xi'an Jiaotong University |
Location: | Please contact Sabrina Lato for the Zoom link. |
Abstract: Walks and closed-walks are ubiquitous in graph theory, which capture lots of important structural information of graphs. In this talk, we shall consider the question in the title. The same question for closed walks is precisely the problem of spectral characterizations of graphs. We show that for most graphs, the number of walks determines the generalized spectrum of graphs and vice versa. Then the above question is equivalent to the problem of generalized spectral characterizations of graphs, a topic which has been studied extensively in recent years. Some simple criterions are provided for graphs G to be determined by their total number of walks, based on some recent results on the generalized spectral characterizations of graphs. Numerical results are also provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. This is a joint work with Weifang Lv, Finjin Liu and Wei Wang.
URA Seminar - Nikhil Kumar
Title: Multicommodity Flows and Cuts
Speaker: | Nikhil Kumar |
Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
Location: | MC 5501 |
Abstract: Flow and cut problems occupy a central place in discrete optimzation and algorithms. The well known max-flow min-cut theorem states that there exists a s-t flow of value d in a network if and only if the minimum capacity of edges whose removal separates s and t is at least d. In this talk, we will discuss a generalization of this problem to the multicommodity setting and study natural necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a feasible flow. We will discuss connections to approximation algorithms, metric embeddings and partitions, and survey some of the classical results, open problems and recent progress.
Algebraic & Enumerative Combinatorics - Tia Ruza
Title: Central Limit Theorems via Analytic Combinatorics in Several Variables
Speaker: | Tia Ruza |
Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
Location: | MC 5479 |
There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at the beginning graduate level starting at 1pm.
Abstract: Analytic combinatorics in several variables is a field of study focused on the derivation of limit behaviours of multivariate sequences. In this talk, I will describe a local central limit theorem and its applications to a variety of examples. Included in these examples will be a family of permutations with restricted cycles, integer compositions with tracked summands and n-colour compositions with tracked summands. The proof of this new, automated, local central limit theorem will also be briefly discussed, using techniques from the theory of analytic combinatorics in several variables. I will also provide background for proving central limit theorems probabilistically.