BIRS Testimonials
Testimonial of the Week
"After my talk, I received very useful feedback. I met several colleagues, whose work I saw and had a chance to talk to them and to establish connections (Y. Capdeboscq, M. Lewicka, H. Kang). We have identified potential collaborations with E. Bonnetier and a number of young researchers H. Nguyen and L. Nguyen. I also had an opportunity to to talk in person with my colleagues whom I have not seen for a while and whose research interests are close to mine: M.Westdickenberg, E. Bonnetier, M. Vogleous."
Leonid Berlyand
Mathematics
Penn State
"This workshop was very interesting and will probably have several impact on my current research. I have new contacts and new ideas for my research. Thanks a lot!"
Virginie Bonnaillie-Noel
IRMAR, ENS Cachan Bretagne
CNRS
"I found the workshop on Convex Algebraic Geometry very stimulating. It is a new field of applications of real algebraic geometry of which I have high expectations. I'll start shortly some new PhD projects on the subject, that would not have been feasible without having attended the workshop. I also made some new contacts that will most likely result in future collaborations."
Johannes Huisman
Mathematics
Universite de Brest
"It was an excellent workshop with extremely many high level talks - congratulations to the organizers! I met many colleagues for the first time and I am sure that the discussions as well as the talks will influence my current and future research."
Martin Henk
University of Magdeburg
"The workshop featured a high number of great talks on important
topics of the emerging discipline of convex algebraic geometry.
Many of the talks gave me new ideas and insights which will be
worked out in ongoing and future research projects.
I think that the workshop will remain an important cornerstone for
the long-term development of the topic of convex algebraic geometry.
Thanks to the organizers and to BIRS!"
Thorsten Theobald
Professor
Mathematics
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
"A very inspirational workshop, meeting colleagues from different areas of math discussing the same fundamental objects and problems. It will certainly affect my research in the area of convex geometry both in the short and in the long term."
Kristian Ranestad
Mathematics
University of Oslo
"It was a very rewarding workshop. There were some topics that I am not an expert in, but which I found very interesting. It is possible that I will do research in these areas in the future. Together with Sturmfels and his group we made plans for a future project, and a planned visit to Berkeley.
During the workshop I made progress on the understanding of which convex sets admit an LMI representation. I found counterexamples to the generalized Lax conjecture which asserts that all
real zero polynomials have LMI representation."
Petter Braenden
Mathematics
Stockholm University
"It was my second stay at BIRS and as a few years ago I again
enjoyed a lot my stay there ..!! The talks were all excellent
and very informative. Interaction with participants was also very
easy and fruitful. In particular I could interact with M. Putinar
and we decide to collaborate on a chapter to write for a handbook
on semidefinite programming and polynomial optimization."
Jean-Bernard Lasserre
Directeur de Recherche au CNRS
LAAS-CNRS and Institute of Mathematics
University of Toulouse
"The workshop has certainly given me many fresh insights in the field; I was able to learn about new techniques, discuss questions at length with a number of participants, many of them not easily available for me otherwise, etc etc. I am starting a project that might resolve an open question asked at the workshop."
Dmitrii (Dima) Pasechnik
School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Nanyang Technological University
"It was a wonderful and inspiring visit, and it will certainly have impact on my future research."
Oliver Labs
Maths and Computer Sciences
Universitaet des Saarlandes
"Some of the people at the workshop I knew quite well, but many others I had either never met or had only talked briefly with in the past. The workshop format (single session, meals together, common lounge area) greatly facilitated getting to know people and discussing common interests. The talks were all very high quality and I came away with many ideas and papers that I want to read. The workshop was very helpful in furthering an existing collaboration and in initiating at least one potential future collaboration."
Michael Graham
Harvey D. Spangler Professor
Chemical and Biological Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The meeting is one of the best if not the best I have attended. I met some people I have known for many years but also met more people for the first time. The scientific program was excellent, and the workshop provided a very good opportunity to hear what people are thinking about in the area of microfluidics etc. Without a doubt, the meeting will influence what I work on next. It was also a good opportunity to seek out possible postdoc openings for a graduate student who is near completing his thesis."
Michael Booty
Mathematical Sciences
New Jersey Institute of Technology
"This workshop is definitely the highest quality workshop I have attended in the past years. The organizers assembled a great list of participants in applied math and engineering to exchange cross-cutting ideas in the thin film and microfluidics areas."
Amy Shen
Mechanical Engineering
University of Washington
"I particularly enjoyed the conference at BIRS. From a professional point of view, the format at BIRS allows for much greater interaction between participants. As everyone stays in the dorm and eats in the cafeteria, it is difficult not to form contacts. As a new worker, these sorts of contacts are invaluable to me.
Work I had done impinged on two of the topics of the conference, making several of the talks directly relevant to my research. In two of these cases, the work discussed had not been published and came from fields that I wouldn't normally read the literature from. In the problem of drop coarsening, I think there's a natural collaboration to explore. At the very least, there's a different application of work I did earlier - an exciting new direction.
In a more general sense, the mix of disciplines meant that I heard talks from people I would not normally see. The mix of theory and experiment made the conference particularly fruitful. Many of the participants wouldn't normally speak at conference I would attend. The organization of the conference around the topic of microfluidics, rather than a technique made this sort of interaction more likely, but credit is due to the organizers for building a program that was so well integrated."
Michael Gratton
Postdoctoral Fellow
Applied Mathematics
Northwestern University
"The workshop at BIRS was wonderful - the setting was beautiful, the accommodations and food excellent, and the scientific environment most stimulating. I met several new people, as well as old friends, and learned a significant amount of new science during my week."
Kenny Breuer
Division of Engineering
Brown University
"This was easily the most stimulating and fun meeting that I have attended in a long time. The location is spectacular and the format of the workshop (similar to a small Gordon conference, where all participants speak) very suitable. New and old/classic ideas were discussed in a relaxed but profound level. Several opportunities for collaborations, even within my own university. Very helpful staff, excellent food and facilities. Thank you."
Joao Cabral
Department of Chemical Engineering
Imperial College London
"As a student who is close to finishing my doctorate, the BIRS workshop was a great venue for networking. I was able to meet and discuss my work with the top researchers in my field in a more informal setting at the absolutely gorgeous Banff Center.
The workshop not only provided a showcase for the high-impact research being conducted in this field but also facilitated group discussion by providing ample unprogrammed time in the schedule.
The BIRS workshop was a wonderful experience that I believe will have a long lasting impact on my research and my career."
Andrew Pascall
Chemical Engineering
University of California, Santa Barbara
"The workshop was very good: impeccably organized, top-notch scientific level, a spectacular location, and wonderful food! I was very impressed by the standard of the presentations: all speakers seemed genuinely concerned to put over their work in a clear and interesting way.
I made several new contacts, and got ideas for problems to work on."
Brian Duffy
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Strathclyde
"Just a quick note to say what an excellent meeting the recent workshop
small scale hydrodynamics was. The quality of the science was uniformly
high and the scheduling, atmosphere and venue perfect. I'm delighted
that BIRS is willing to host more "applied" meetings such as this and
urge you to organise related meetings in similar themes in the future."
Stephen Wilson
Department of Mathematics
University of Strathclyde
"... I would like to thank BIRS for hosting our half workshop this past week. It was most successful and we believe that it fostered many new collaborations, particularly between researchers in matrix theory and those interested in communication complexity. At first it was hard for us to prune the list of participants to 22, but as we ran it in a true workshop style (with about 2 days set aside for research in groups), we came to believe that this number was ideal. As usual the facilities at BIRS were excellent, with Brenda and the other folk going out of their way to help us."
Pauline van den Driessche
Professor Emeritus
Mathematics & Statistics
University of Victoria
"It was a very successful half-workshop. We got everything out of it we hoped for. The mixing of the two groups - combinatorial matrix theory/ other matrix theory AND Communication Complexity couldn't have gone better. The mixing was great, and we had a very congenial/open bunch of people. We had time to collaborate and work on some problems of interest to all. There were 6 young researchers at the workshop and the workshop should have a substantial impact on their research and development. Thanks so much for your support!"
Richard Brualdi
UWF Beckwith Bascom Professor of Mathematics (Emeritus)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Let me echo Richard's words on the workshop last week. Both the format of the workshop and the group assembled worked very well together. It truly was an effective event.
Many thanks to you and to the BIRS staff... First rate in my mind."
Shaun Fallat
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Regina
"It was a great workshop. I learned a great deal of new material related to my current research, and I had an opportunity to meet and work with active researchers in communication complexity and matrix theory. The most exciting (at the same time, most challenging) part of the workshop was a group project. Each participant was put into a group and worked together with other group members. Our group had wonderful chemistry among members, and the group made some interesting progress on sign ranks of a particular kind of matrices, which can give some impact on the study of communication complexity. The group project will be further investigated, and it could result in a joint research paper.
I am a junior faculty member at a teaching institution. The workshop participation and related activities will be put into a tenure application package. The new material that I learned from the workshop also will be used to develop research projects for undergraduate students at my institution. I would like to thank BIRS and the organizers for this awesome workshop. I am looking forward to participating some other workshops at BIRS."
In-Jae Kim
Assistant Professor
Mathematics and Statistics
Minnesota State University
"My participation in the workshop on the Theory and Applications of Matrices described by Patterns has broadened my research interests and created new research collaborations. One of the goals of the workshop was to bring together researchers from the somewhat related but distinct areas of minimum rank and communication complexity. This was highly successful, and during the workshop, research groups were formed consisting of people from each of these areas. Problems were posed for each of these groups to consider, research was initiated, and I expect that these collaborations will continue and hopefully result in published papers.
The BIRS staff, especially Brenda, was extremely helpful, knowledgeable and friendly. The facilities (meeting rooms, bedrooms, computer facilities) were excellent. The food was absolutely first class."
Dale Olesky
Department of Computer Science
University of Victoria
"The workshop was highly successful in bringing together researchers in combinatorial matrix theory and communication complexity to extend results on minimum rank of matrices described by a +- pattern. Two groups of collaborators have begun work and made some progress."
Leslie Hogben
Department of Mathematics
Iowa State University
"BIRS gets better every time we visit. It is impressive how the
institute has taken care of all details to help participants maximize
research time. The people from overseas (all but three!!!)
were very much impressed, even the Germans who frequent
Oberwolfach.
Speaking personally, I appreciate many small incremental
improvements ... It's a place we can all be proud of,
and I thank everyone for the effort and dedication."
Luc Devroye
James McGill Professor
School of Computer Science
McGill University
"This was a really good workshop, with many interesting talks."
Serguei Popov
Departamento de Estatistica
IMECC-UNICAMP
Universidade de Sao Paulo
"I haven't so far written anything on branching random walk, although it is close to my research areas. So I learnt an awful lot from the talks and also made some new contacts. The open problem sessions were very stimulating and I think gave us a unique perspective on the state of the art.
Several of my collaborators (in particular Benedicte Haas, Louigi Addario-Berry and Nicolas Broutin) were present at the workshop and we made significant progress on two of my principal research projects. It was a very productive week for me."
Christina Goldschmidt
Statistics
University of Warwick
"... our stay at BIRS was very productive and enjoyable. I met several people and learned a more in a week than I would in months. I started a few collaborations that will last for years."
Bálint Virág
Canada Research Chair
Mathematics
University of Toronto
"Program was great."
Alan Edelman
Computer Science and AI Laboratories
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Thank you and BIRS for providing such a scientific-friendly and comfortable environment for holding the wonderful workshop! I did learn the up to date knowledge on stochastic modeling of cell dynamics. I wish that I can participate some other events at BIRS some time later."
Jiaxu Li
Department of Mathematics
University of Louisville
"... It was a great experience to participate in the workshop at Banff Research Centre. This workshop gave me the opportunity to talk with many people in different areas with similar interest, and gave me a lot of ideas about my current research. Thank you very much again, and if there is a chance, I would like to visit Banff Research Centre to participate other workshops."
Hye-Won Kang
Postdoctoral Associate
School of Mathematics
University of Minnesota
"Not only did I attend a very interesting meeting and had the opportunity to establish new collaborations, but also enjoyed a beautiful landscape and comfortable facilities. In summary, I had a terrific time and I am sure that it will have a positive influence in my research. I hope I can come back in the near future."
Moisés Santillán
Centre for Research and Advanced Studies
Computational Systems Biology Lab
Monterrey Unit
"... the BIRS meeting was wonderfully productive. I presented
late in the meeting and I added four slides to my talk inspired by the
overall themes covered and the common framework that I saw
emerging. Today I gave a lecture in my graduate course on inverse
problems that was essentially just an expanded version of those
four slides."
Scott Carney
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
"I think that workshop was particularly successful. It brought
together two very different groups of people and speakers
really made an effort to make their work intelligible to the
"other" community. I learned a lot from my stay at BIRS."
Stuart Whittington
Chemical Physics Theory Group
University of Toronto
"... This was one of the best meetings I have been to in a long time. The combination of facilities, location, organization, and warm hospitality is essentially unparalleled in my experience. Moreover, my research program benefited directly from information exchanged with other participants and we will actively pursue a number of new approaches as a result.
Many thanks for sponsoring and facilitating such a productive and stimulating workshop."
Stephen Levene
Molecular & Cell Biology and Physics
University of Texas at Dallas
"... I was very impressed by the impeccable organization and the excellent facilities at the Banff Center. Most importantly, the meeting gave me both the opportunity to expose my work to new audiences (mathematicians and biologists) with whom I normally have limited interaction, and to learn a lot from them."
Yitzhak Rabin
Physics
Bar-Ilan University
"... as a biologist I found the workshop inspiring and have formed a collaboration with a mathematician on the spot there. I will keep you posted on our research progresses.
I thank the organizers for doing a fabulous job of bringing different people together and for including me."
Wei Yang
Chief, Structure and Mechanism Section
LMB, NIDDK
National Institute for Health
"The BIRS meeting last week was one of the best meetings I have ever attended both in terms of scientific quality and organisation. It helped me to focus my research program and enabled me to tie contacts with scientists from other fields interested in similar problems. In short, the meeting was exemplary in all respects. Many thanks to the organizers!"
Georgi Muskhelishivili
School of Engineering and Science
Jacobs University, Bremen
"... The outcome of our workshop is very exciting and looking forward for the completion of the assignment this summer. Thank you for your hospitality."
Wilf McDougall
First Nation Elder
"I have learned about some new approaches to imaging and some participants have asked me for follow up on some of my work. Mission accomplished!"
Erik L Ritman
MD PhD
Physiology and Biomedical Engineering
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
"This was one of the most interesting workshops in which I have ever participated."
Otmar Scherzer
University of Vienna
"The workshop was great, people and their talks were
very interesting, and the location was superb!"
Leonid Kunyansky
Mathematics
University of Arizona, Tucson
"... While the peaceful and beautiful environment of BIRS definitely contributed to the success of the conference, it was the quality of the invited speakers which made all the difference. To the best of my knowledge, this was the very first conference specifically dedicated to the subject of Dedekind sums. I was surprised how popular the subject is and how many people from various other areas of mathematics and other parts of the world showed up. Many of the participants I met for the first time. As a result of attending the conference, I am starting to write a book on Dedekind sums. Moreover, a collaboration with a fellow mathematician I met at the conference was initiated on a joint project. I also learned about three interesting problems to work on in the future..."
Robert Sczech
Mathematics and Computer Science
Rutgers University
