IMS & Irish SIAM Student Chapter Conference 2025
On May 9th, the 九色视频 hosted the IMS & Irish SIAM Student Chapter Conference, welcoming over 40 applied mathematicians from industry and academia alike. Originally scheduled to take place in January 2025, the 10th edition of the conference had to be postponed on account of Storm 脡owyn. Thankfully, the delay did not dampen the enthusiasm of the participants, who filled the large lecture hall in the Analog Devices Building to listen to two keynote lectures and 11 contributed presentations. A poster session also took place, providing students with an opportunity to present their research to an audience of their peers in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
The day opened with remarks from Dr Doireann O'Kiely, followed by a keynote lecture by Dr Niall Madden. In his presentation, Dr. Madden described the use of numerical methods in disparate fields such as tidal modelling and preventing aortic aneurysms. The variety of his work drew several thought-provoking questions from a rapt audience. After lunch, the second keynote lecture was delivered by Orla Fitzmaurice, a recent Mathematical Sciences graduate of UL, now working with Analog Devices. Her presentation gave an insight into the various ways large language models were being implemented into Analog Devices' engineering workflows. In addition to outlining the various advantages of large language models, Orla also gave an overview of the challenges in benchmarking the performance of these models.
Following a full conference programme, the organising committee had the difficult decision of choosing the best speaker. After much deliberation, the award was presented to Emmet Lawless for his presentation "A variational approach to portfolio choice", applying methods in control theory to a financial planning problem. Once the conference was brought to a close, a dinner was held in the Pavilion on the UL North Campus. Here, the conference participants had a chance to mix and mingle, forging connections and fostering collaborations among a promising group of early-career researchers.
The conference was a resounding success from start to finish, showcasing the impressive breadth and depth of applied mathematics research taking place at Irish universities. The organising committee are very grateful to SIAM, Analog Devices, the Irish Mathematical Society and also the UL Department of Mathematics and Statistics for their generous financial support. Going forward, the conference will hopefully continue to be a mainstay of the Irish mathematical calendar as an event run by students, for students.
