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<div align="center"><font face="Calibri"><b><big><big>CMS / AARMS
Lecture: Mary Lou Zeeman</big></big></b></font></div>
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Date: September 27, 2013<br>
Time: 7:00pm<br>
Venue: Potter Auditorium,<br>
Rowe Building,<br>
Dalhousie University<br>
6100 University Avenue<br>
Halifax, NS<br>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri"><b>Title</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri">Harnessing
Math to Understand Tipping Points</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri"><b>Abstract</b></font>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri">The
term “tipping point” describes the moment when a system
suddenly changes state, with no obvious trigger other than a
slowly changing environment. Tipping points are difficult to
predict and difficult to reverse. Examples range from
capsizing boats to fishery collapse; they include financial
market crashes, the poverty trap, melting polar ice caps,
shifts in ecosystems, and mood changes. A mathematical
framework for understanding how tipping points can arise as
bifurcations has long been in place. Pressing sustainability
questions are now placing the study of tipping points in the
context of policy decision support, and driving efforts to
explore the interaction between tipping and stochasticity in
noisy systems. Can we extract, from measurements, indicators
of resilience to tipping and early warning signals for
proximity to a tipping point? We will introduce the
bifurcation framework and discuss these questions in the
context of applications to climate and biology.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri"><b>Biography</b></font>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="Calibri">Mary
Lou Zeeman is the Wells Johnson Professor of Mathematics at
Bowdoin College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of
California, Berkeley under the supervision of Moe Hirsch;
worked at the University of Texas at San Antonio for 15 years;
and has held visiting positions at the Institute for
Mathematics and its Applications, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, the University of Michigan, and Cornell. Her
research interests range from dynamical systems to population
dynamics and fisheries, neuroscience, endocrinology, and
climate science.<br>
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<font face="Calibri">Zeeman is also involved in several
interdisciplinary initiatives focused on the health of the
planet. She co-directs the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mathclimate.org/">Mathematics and Climate
Research Network</a> that links researchers across the U.S.
and beyond to develop the mathematics needed to better
understand the earth's climate (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.mathclimate.org">www.mathclimate.org</a>).
She helped found the Institute for Computational Sustainability
based at Cornell University, and she is on the organizational
team of the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mpe2013.org/">Mathematics of Planet Earth
2013</a> initiativ</font><font face="Calibri">e.</font><br>
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