Thu, 29 Jan 2026

12:00 - 13:00
L3

OCIAM TBC

Anne Skeldon
(University of Surrey)

The join button will be published 30 minutes before the seminar starts (login required).

Further Information

Anne Skeldon’s background is in dynamical systems and bifurcation theory. Her early research focused on pattern formation and fluid mechanics, particularly the Faraday wave problem. She later shifted towards applications in biology and sociology, serving as a co-investigator on the six-year complexity-science project Evolution and Resilience of Industrial Ecosystems. She is part of the Mathematics of Life and Social Sciences research group and co-leads the cross-faculty Centre for Mathematical and Computational Biology.

Her current research centres on sleep, circadian rhythms, and data science. She collaborates with researchers at the Surrey Sleep Research Centre to develop and analyse mathematical models of sleep–wake regulation—work that has featured in the UK parliamentary debate, “School should start at 10am because teenagers are too tired.” She has a particular interest in the influence of the light environment on sleep, including the potential effects of permanent daylight saving time, and in the use of mathematical models for fatigue risk management.

Thu, 22 Jan 2026

12:00 - 13:00
L3

OCIAM TBC

Katerina Kaouri
(Cardiff)

The join button will be published 30 minutes before the seminar starts (login required).

Further Information

Dr. Kaouri is working on developing models of airborne transmission in indoor spaces, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and funded by the Welsh Government. She continues to create tools for future epidemics. She has also been developing models for IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) and embryogenesis, focusing on the interplay between calcium signalling and cellular mechanics, and she leads the inFer academia-clinic interdisciplinary GW4 network, which aims to improve IVF success rates.

Defect Conformal Manifolds from Phantom Noninvertible Symmetries
Antinucci, A Copetti, C Galati, G Rizi, G Physical Review Letters volume 135 issue 21 (17 Nov 2025)
Sharp error bounds for approximate eigenvalues and singular values from subspace methods
Irina-Beatrice, H Nakatsukasa, Y SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications
A new 5-D highly hyperchaotic system with a line equilibrium, its bifurcation analysis, multistability and electronic circuit simulation
Vaidyanathan, S Hannachi, F Moroz, I Mohamed, M Sambas, A Aruna, C Raju, A Archives of Control Sciences 561-585-561-585 (30 Sep 2025)
On complex network techniques for atmospheric flow analysis: a polar vortex case study
Reboredo Prado, M Lambiotte, R Moroz, I Osprey, S Journal of Physics: Complexity (18 Nov 2025)
Privacy-preserving local language models accurately identify the presence and timing of self-harm in electronic mental health records (Preprint)
Kormilitzin, A Joyce, D Tsiachristas, A Borschmann, R Kapur, N Geulayov, G
Optimal experimental design for parameter estimation in the presence of observation noise.
Baker, R Qi, J Mathematical Biosciences
Wed, 26 Nov 2025
13:00
Quillen Room N3.12

From 3D Chern-Simons Theory to Knot Invariants

Yuhan Gai
Abstract

Witten’s seminal 1988 work revealed the connection between 3-dimensional Chern-Simons theory and knot invariants. In this talk, I will provide a physically motivated overview and explain how skein relations manifest from a path-integral/partition-function perspective on 3-manifolds with Wilson lines inserted. There will also be some fun topological brain-twisters for the audience. If time permits, I will comment on recent developments involving factorization homology and its relation to correlators for logarithmic CFTs.

Junior Strings is a seminar series where DPhil students present topics of common interest that do not necessarily overlap with their own research area. This is primarily aimed at PhD students and post-docs but everyone is welcome.

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