The Seminar in Geometry and Statistics takes place monthly at the Department of Mathematics and Data Science of VUB (Building G, Sixth Floor, Room 6.60). It is flexible in terms of schedule and topics, though topics revolve around geometry and statistics. The organizers are Dr. Susovan Pal and myself.
DATE: 12 March 2026
SPEAKER: Marco Usula (Oxford University)
TITLE: PINNs, minimal surfaces, and knots
ABSTRACT: In this talk, I will discuss a new computational approach to finding minimal surfaces in hyperbolic space using Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs). By designing an ansatz that strictly enforces asymptotic boundary conditions, our algorithm finds explicit numerical minimal discs in Hn. I will then explore applications of this method to existing conjectures involving knots bounding minimal surfaces in H4.
DATE: 19 February 2026
SPEAKER: Fernando Galaz-Garcia (Durham University)
TITLE: Metric geometry of spaces of persistence diagrams
DATE: 22 January 2026
SPEAKER: Lynn Delcon (VUB)
TITLE: Boundary Point Detection Methods: An Information-based Comparative Study
DATE: 12 December 2025
SPEAKER: Simon Jacobsson (KU Leuven)
TITLE: A Riemannian geometry of low-rank tensors
DATE: 20 November 2025
SPEAKER: Alexey Lazarev (Toulouse Université)
TITLE: Curvature regularization and Riemannian clustering in the latent space of an autoencoder
DATE: 16 October 2025
SPEAKER: Marie Bormann (Bonn Universität)
TITLE: A gradient flow that is none: Heat flow with Wentzell boundary conditions
DATE: 11 September 2025
SPEAKER: Martin Andersson (Uppsala University)
TITLE: Finite-sample inference for intrinsic dimension via Gaussian kernels
DATE: 24 April 2025
SPEAKER: Alice Le Brigant (Sorbonne Université)
TITLE: The Lp Fisher-Rao metric and the alpha-connection
DATE: 18 March 2025
SPEAKER: Mauricio Che (University of Vienna)
TITLE: Spaces of Persistence Diagrams and Optimal Partial Transport
DATE: 13 February 2025
SPEAKER: Diego Bolón Rodríguez (ULB)
TITLE: A review on highest density region estimation
DATE: 23 January 2025
SPEAKER: Eddie Aamari (École Normale Supérieure de Paris)
TITLE: A theory of stratification learning: clustering-by-dimensionality with reconstruction
DATE: 12 December 2024
SPEAKER: Susovan Pal (VUB)
TITLE: Optimal lift, a tool for statistical testing on Singular Shape Spaces
DATE: 13 November 2024
SPEAKER: Claire Brécheteau (Nantes Université)
TITLE: Statistical tests for uniformity and iidness on homogeneous spaces
DATE: 11 September 2024
SPEAKER: Pierre-Antoine Absil (UCLouvain)
TITLE: Feasible and Infeasible Optimization on Manifolds