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Simons Foundation Lectures

Simons Foundation

The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences.

Co-founded in New York City by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the foundation exists to support basic — or discovery-driven — scientific research undertaken in the pursuit of understanding the phenomena of our world.

The Simons Foundation’s support of science takes two forms: We support research by making grants to individual investigators and their projects through academic institutions, and, with the launch of the Flatiron Institute in 2016, we now conduct scientific research in-house, supporting teams of top computational scientists.

Links:
Simons Foundation: https://www.simonsfoundation.org
Flatiron Institute: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/flatiron/
Simons Foundation Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimonsFoundation
Flatiron Institute Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlatironInstitute/
Simons Foundation Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsfdn
Flatiron Institute Twitter: https://twitter.com/flatironinst

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  • 134 episodes
  • daily
  • Avg 59 min
  • English

Episodes 134

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  • Yesterday · 3 hr 4 min

    WFIRST Exoplanet Imaging Data Challenge Tutorial Day 2 (October 17, 2019)

    This 2-day tutorial allowed participants to prepare for the WFIRST Exoplanet Imaging Data Challenge. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/wfirst-exoplanet-imaging-data-challenge-tutorial/ Uploaded 05-12-19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 48 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Caroline Uhler

    Causal Structure and Representation Learning with Biomedical Applications Massive data collection holds the promise of a better understanding of complex phenomena and, ultimately, better decisions. Representation learning has become a key driver of deep learning applications, as it allows learning latent spaces that capture important properties of the data without requiring any supervised annotations. Although representation learning has been hugely successful in predictive tasks, it can fail miserably in causal tasks including predicting the effect of a perturbation/intervention. This calls for a marriage between representation learning and causal inference. An exciting opportunity in this regard stems from the growing availability of multi-modal data (observational and perturbational, imaging-based and sequencing-based, at the single-cell level, tissue-level, and organism-level). We outline a statistical and computational framework for causal structure and representation learning motivated by fundamental biomedical questions: how to effectively use observational and perturbational data to perform causal discovery on observed causal variables; how to use multi-modal views of the system to learn causal variables; and how to design optimal perturbations. Uploaded 05-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 40 min

    Cryo-EM Workshop - Erik Lindahl (August 9, 2019)

    More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/nyc-computational-cryo-em-summer-workshop/ Uploaded 26-08-19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 48 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Ben Davison

    BPS Cohomology in Geometry and Representation Theory We motivate and survey the theory of BPS invariants of categories and BPS cohomology of stacks, indicating applications in enumerative geometry and representation theory, as well as recent advances. Uploaded 06-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 5 hr 1 min

    WFIRST Exoplanet Imaging Data Challenge Tutorial Day 1 (October 16, 2019)

    This 2-day tutorial allowed participants to prepare for the WFIRST Exoplanet Imaging Data Challenge. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/wfirst-exoplanet-imaging-data-challenge-tutorial/ Uploaded 05-12-19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 9 min

    Science Lives: Yuri Manin, On Cubic Forms

    Watch the rest of Yuri Manin's profile at https://www.simonsfoundation.org/science_lives_video/yuri-manin/ Uploaded 20-04-15 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 43 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Sam Raskin

    Unramified Automorphic Forms We will discuss recent progress on understanding everywhere unramified automorphic forms over function fields. The main application, joint with D. Gaitsgory and V. Lafforgue, is a proof of the Arthur-Ramanujan conjecture in this setting, , which describes the magnitudes of Hecke eigenvalues of cusp forms. This is ultimately obtained as a consequence of the geometric Langlands conjecture for D-modules in characteristic 0. In this talk, we will give an introduction to this circle of ideas. Uploaded 06-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr 4 min

    Ofer Zeitouni: Extrema of the Characteristic Polynomial of CβE Matrices (September 11, 2025)

    The logarithm of the characteristic polynomial of Cβ E matrices, viewed as a function on the unit circle in the complex plane, is a logarithmically correlated field. Ofer Zeitouni will describe joint work with Elliot Paquette, where we prove that properly centered, the maximum of this field converges to the sum of a Gumbel random variable and an independent random variable Z, thus validating a famous conjecture of Fyodorov–Hiary–Keating. If time permits, Zeitouni will describe recent work identifying the random variable Z Uploaded 28-10-25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 9 min

    Mathematical Impressions: Making Music With a Möbius Strip

    Musical chords naturally inhabit certain topological spaces, which show the possible paths that a composer can use to move between chords. Uploaded 22-05-14 http://www.simonsfoundation.org/multimedia/mathematical-impressions-making-music-with-a-mobius-strip/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 49 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Moritz Hardt

    The Future of Prediction: in Conversation with Oskar Morgenstern A century ago, economist Oskar Morgenstern studied what he called one of the most central and most difficult problems in the theory of prediction: predictions that actively influence outcomes. Self-fulfilling and self-negating prophecies are two extreme cases of a fundamental problem that arises with all predictions about social outcomes. People act on predictions in ways that change the course of events, a phenomenon called performativity. Morgenstern argued that performativity doomed prediction in the social world to guesswork with unforeseeable results. This talk gives an entry point to the emerging area of performative prediction that provides counterpoints to Morgenstern's pessimistic prophecy. The standard formulation of machine learning as risk minimization assumes a fixed data-generating distribution. Performative prediction extends risk minimization toward data-generating distributions that depend on the predictive model. This extension leads to the powerful algorithmic principle of repeated risk minimization, alternating risk minimization and model deployment indefinitely. Under suitable conditions, repeated risk minimization converges to a stable point, a kind of equilibrium at which the predictive model minimizes risk on the distribution it entails. We'll discuss three perspectives on performativity using ideas from economic modeling, optimization, and the theory of forecasting that contribute principled ways to reason about predictions that influences outcomes. Uploaded 06-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr 11 min

    Volker Springel - Hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations (December 13, 2019)

    Simulations of cosmic structure formation have come a long way. Nowadays, they are not only accurately predicting the dark matter backbone of the cosmic web and the internal structure of halos and their satellites far into the non-linear regime, but are also capable of following the baryonic sector with rapidly improving physical fidelity. In my talk, I will review the methodology and selected successes of recent hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations, and critically discuss some of the primary uncertainties in modelling strong, scale-dependent feedback processes. I will also highlight predictions for the structure of magnetic fields in galaxies and the importance of cosmic rays in galaxy evolution. Finally, I discuss some of the challenges lying ahead in this field in the coming years. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/cca-colloquium-volker-springel/ Uploaded 03-01-20 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 11 min

    Mathematical Impressions: Geometry of Spaghetti Code

    A sculpture project built entirely with right angles combines math and art in subtle and surprising ways. Uploaded 22-05-14 http://www.simonsfoundation.org/multimedia/geometry-of-spaghetti-code/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr 2 min

    Alena Pirutka— On Rationality Over the Reals (Oct. 2, 2025)

    https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/simons-collaboration-on-moduli-of-varieties-annual-meeting-2025/ 2025 Annual Meeting of the Simons Collaboration on Moduli of Varieties Simons Foundation October 2-3, 2025 Uploaded 27-10-25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr 13 min

    Maryam Modjaz - Stellar Forensics with the most powerful explosions in the Universe (Oct 25, 2019)

    Supernovae (SNe) and Long-duration Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are exploding stars and constitute the most powerful explosions in the universe. Since they are visible over large cosmological distances, release elements heavier than Helium, and leave behind extreme remnants such as black holes, they are fascinating objects, as well as crucial tools for many areas of astrophysics, including cosmology. Uploaded 03-01-20 However, for many years the fundamental question of which stellar systems give rise to which kinds of explosions has remained outstanding: for Type Ia SNe used for cosmology as well as for Superluminous SNe and long-duration GRBs that must originate from special kinds of massive stars. I will discuss the exciting recent progress that we have made on this question in key areas by publishing and thoroughly analyzing the largest data sets in the world at the time. I will conclude with an outlook on how the most promising avenues of research – using the existing and upcoming innovative large time-domain surveys such as ZTF and LSST – will shed new light on the diverse deaths of stars. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/cca-colloquium-maryam-modjaz/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr 12 min

    2027 Fellows-to-Faculty RFA Informational Webinar

    Watch this informational webinar to learn about the Simons Foundation’s 2027 Fellows-to-Faculty Award program, a funding opportunity for senior postdocs and early-career scientists heading into the faculty job market. The program aims to nurture new talent and broaden the community of researchers contributing to the missions of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB), and the Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE). Uploaded 23-10-26 For more information please visit: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/autism-neuroscience/fellows-to-faculty/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 42 min

    ICM 2026 Invited Section Lecture - Nicolas Perkowski

    Energy Lagrangian Flows for Singular SPDEs and Applications Energy Lagrangian flows are a formulation of the Lagrangian flows of Di Perna-Lions and their stochastic counterparts by Le Bris-Lions and Figalli in the setting of singular stochastic dynamics, partly in regimes where classical and pathwise theories break down. A key notion is "probabilistic subcriticality": even for scaling critical or supercritical equations, regularity of the law combined with coercivity of the generator may yield existence and uniqueness. I will outline the construction and well-posedness results, the relation to pathwise constructions, and applications to hydrodynamics and numerical analysis. Uploaded 05-10-26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Yesterday · 1 hr

    James McKernan— Kähler Versus Projective (Oct. 2, 2025)

    https://www.simonsfoundation.org/event/simons-collaboration-on-moduli-of-varieties-annual-meeting-2025/ 2025 Annual Meeting of the Simons Collaboration on Moduli of Varieties Simons Foundation October 2-3, 2025 Uploaded 27-10-25 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Showing 41–60 of 134 episodes