Applied and Computational Math Seminar: Topological Data Analysis of Spatial Complex Systems

Speaker: Mason Porter, UCLA Dept. of Mathematics 
Title: Topological Data Analysis of Spatial Complex Systems

Abstract: From the venation patterns of leaves to spider webs, roads in cities, and granular materials, the structure of many systems are influenced heavily by space. Accordingly, the analysis of the effects of space on structure and function is an active area in the study of networks and other complex systems. In this talk, I'll give an introduction to topological data analysis (especially persistent homology) and discuss its application to spatial complex systems. As an illustrative example, I will present a case study using apocalyptic voting data from California in 2016.

Biography Mason Porter is a Mathematics Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He works on a range of topics in applied and theoretical mathematics. These include community structure in multidimensional networks, dynamical systems, granular material, topological data analysis, and social network analysis. His collaborators include Alex Arenas, Danielle Bassett, Andrea Bertozzi, Charlotte Deane, Heather Harrington, and Peter Mucha. He has been the recipient of numerous awards (Erdős–Rényi Prize of the Network Science Society, Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society, Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics by the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft) and is a SIAM fellow and a fellow of the American Physical Society. Prof. Porter has a BS from Caltech and a PhD from Cornell University. 

Time: Thursday, October 24, 2019, 1:00-2:30pm

Place: Exploratory Hall, Room 3301