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Thursday,
16 Oct. 2025 |
Video-Recording for any system with MP4-support - Video.mp4 (ca. 380 Mb) |
15:15 – 16:23 |
"Networks, Topological Data Analysis, and Social Dynamics"
Speaker: Prof. Mason Porter
(Department of Mathematics, UCLA)
Abstract:
I will overview some recent research
projects in networks, topological data analysis,
and social dynamics. I will
start with a brief summary of several research threads,
and then I will go into more
detail on two topics. First, I will discuss topological
data analysis in spatial and
social systems. I will present results on voting systems,
resource
coverage, and continuum percolation with disks. Second, I will discuss
opinion
dynamics on networks. I will discuss bounded-confidence models, in which
interacting
individuals compromise their opinions when their views are sufficiently
similar,
and examine how they lead to opinion consensus, polarization, and
fragmentation
on different types of networks.
About the Speaker:
Prof. Mason Porter obtained his PhD in
2002 from Cornell University and has been
a professor at the Department
of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) since 2016 and an External
Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Earlier he has been associated with the
Department of Sociology UCLA, and the
Mathematical Institute, University of
Oxford where he was professor of Nonlinear and
Complex Systems.
He was awarded the George Pólya Prize for
Mathematical Exposition,
Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (SIAM) in 2025, the Robert Sorgenfrey
Distinguished Teaching Award, Department
of Mathematics, UCLA, 2023–24, and the
Whitehead Prize, London Mathematical
Society, 2015. He is a fellow of the Society for
Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM),
fellow of the American Mathematical
Society, fellow of the American Physical
Society. He is Highly
Cited Researcher in the
“Cross-Field” category, according to the Clarivate Web of Science during 2020, 2021,
2022, 2023, 2024.