[cmath] BIRS-MSRI Summer School: Call for Nominations

[BIRS Facilitator]

BIRS is pleased to announce its first Graduate Summer School: “Sums of Squares Method in Geometry, Combinatorics and Optimization <http://www.birs.ca/events/2022/summer-schools/22ss199>” joint with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Berkeley. The summer school will be held at BIRS’s new location at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna from July 31 to August 12, 2022. Accommodation, meals and research facilities will be provided free of cost to all participants for the duration of the program. For more information, please visit:

https://www.msri.org/summer_schools/924 <https://www.msri.org/summer_schools/924> 

http://www.birs.ca/events/2022/summer-schools/22ss199 <http://www.birs.ca/events/2022/summer-schools/22ss199>
For Canadian participants, admission to the summer school is based on departmental nominations. Nominations from Canadian institutions will be accepted beginning at 10:00am Mountain Time on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 and will be processed on a first-come first-served basis until January 31, 2022 or until capacity is reached. If spots remain available after the nomination deadline, an open application process will commence.

Nominations should be made by a department head or graduate chair (or equivalent) and sent via e-mail to birs at birs.ca <mailto:birs at birs.ca> with subject “2022 Summer School Nomination”. Please review the “How to apply” and “Suggested prerequisites” sections below prior to submitting nominations.

Questions about the program or nomination process can be sent to birs at birs.ca <mailto:birs at birs.ca>.

Eligibility

Students must be enrolled in a graduate level mathematics program (masters or Ph.D) at a Canadian university.

Students from Canadian universities that are not MSRI Sponsored Academic Institutions <https://www.msri.org/web/msri/support-msri/academic-sponsors/current-academic-sponsors> can be nominated by their department head, or graduate chair, or equivalent. 

Faculty from Canadian institutions that are MSRI Sponsored <https://www.msri.org/web/msri/support-msri/academic-sponsors/current-academic-sponsors> should nominate students through the MSRI nomination portal <https://www.msri.org/web/msri/scientific/workshops/summer-graduate-school>.

How to apply

Graduate students must be nominated by their respective departments, in consultation with faculty supervisors as applicable. The department head or graduate chair should submit a nomination for their institution during the enrollment period, specifying the names and institution of nominator, travel supports for accepted students, and, for each nominee, the student's name and contact email. A department can submit one nomination. A second nomination will be considered only if at least one nominee is a self-identified member of an under-represented group in STEM.    

BIRS is unable to provide travel support for summer school attendance. Nominating institutions should, where possible, provide travel funding for accepted students. The nomination letter should confirm availability of travel funds in order for the nomination to be considered. 

Nominations will be accepted beginning at 10:00am Mountain Time on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. Nominations will be processed on a first-come first-served basis until the Summer School capacity is reached. Nominations should be sent via e-mail to birs at birs.ca <mailto:birs at birs.ca> with subject “Summer School Nomination”.

Suggested prerequisites

We will assume thorough familiarity with some topics in algebra on the level of a first year graduate sequence in Algebra. In particular, the students should be familiar with groups, rings and ideals, quotients, etc. A concrete source for the needed background are Appendices 1 and 4 in the book Semidefinite Optimization and Convex Algebraic Geometry <https://sites.math.washington.edu/~thomas/frg/frgbook/SIAMBookFinalvNov12-2012.pdf>, (Editors: Grigoriy Blekherman, Pablo A. Parrilo and Rekha R. Thomas, MOS-SIAM Series on Optimization 13 , 2012.) Familiarity with any of representation theory, real algebraic geometry, convex geometry, graph theory or semidefinite optimization is a plus but will not be assumed. Students should prepare by reading Appendices 2 and 3 in that same book.


Best regards,

Malabika Pramanik
BIRS Scientific Director
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