BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Events - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Events
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://events.ucsc.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Events
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20250309T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20251102T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20260308T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20261101T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20270314T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20271107T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260105T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260105T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251217T182411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251218T002005Z
UID:10005858-1767628800-1767632400@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:AM Seminar with Dr. Truong Vu
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Dr. Truong Vu\, IPAM and MSU \nDescription: We present a framework for the gradient flow of sharp-interface surface energies that couple to embedded curvature active agents. We use a penalty method to develop families of locally incompressible gradient flows that couple interface stretching or compression to local flux of interfacial mass. We establish the convergence of the penalty method to an incompressible flow both formally for a broad family of surface energies and rigorously for a more narrow class of surface energies. \nBio: Dr. Vu received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Department of Mathematics\, Statistics\, and Computer Science at University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Vu is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (UCLA) and a visiting faculty in the Department of Mathematics at Michigan State University. \nHosted by: Applied Mathematics 
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/am-seminar/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/txvu.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251219T164251Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251219T164251Z
UID:10007701-1768233600-1768237200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Kathleen Schmidt: Sequential Experimental Design for Materials Strength Model Calibration
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Katie Schmidt\, UQ & Optimization Group Leader\, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory \nDescription: Due to the time and expense associated with physical experiments\, there is significant interest in optimal selection of the conditions for future experiments. Selection based on reduction in parameter uncertainty provides a natural path forward. We consider this type of optimal sequential design in the context of Bayesian calibration of materials strength models with the strength model characterizing the evolving resistance of a material to permanent strain. This problem is particularly challenging because different types of experiments and associated diagnostics are employed across strain rate regimes. For lower-strain-rate experiments\, stress-strain curves can be measured directly. For higher-strain-rate experiments\, strength must be inferred (e.g.\, from the deformation of a cylinder of material in a Taylor cylinder experiment). We employ data fusion in our sequential design methodology to incorporate these multiple experimental modalities. \nLLNL-ABS-835231 This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. \nBio: Katie Schmidt is the UQ & Optimization Group Leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She joined LLNL in 2016 after earning a PhD in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University. During her time at the lab\, Katie has been involved in a variety of uncertainty quantification problems related to national security as well as outreach and education through LLNL’s Data Science Institute. Her research interests include mixed-effects models\, Bayesian inference\, sequential design\, and sensitivity analysis. \nHosted by: Statistics Department
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/kathleen-schmidt-sequential-experimental-design-for-materials-strength-model-calibration/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/ph.d.-presentation-graphic-option-1-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20260112T164010Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260112T164010Z
UID:10008343-1768233600-1768237200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:AM Seminar: Science in the Age of Foundation Models
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Dr. Danielle Robinson\, AWS AI \nDescription: In this talk\, I will discuss the large impact of foundation models within the sciences with a particular focus on the importance of physical constraints and uncertainty quantification. First\, I will detail our novel ProbConserv framework for enforcing hard constraints within black-box deep learning models. ProbConserv provides uncertainty quantification\, and can be used to enforce conservation law constraints as well as other nonlinear constraints. Next\, I will discuss its extensions to ensembles of Neural Operators and out-of-distribution (OOD) estimations\, as well as how it can be used in constrained generative modeling of PDEs. I will then show applications of our work in computational fluid dynamics (CFD)\, including weather forecasting\, aerodynamics and chaotic systems. Lastly\, I will conclude with a forward-looking view of the next steps for designing a physics foundation model that can be applied across various types of flows\, geometries and boundary conditions\, and what is needed for such a model to be developed. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBio: Danielle Maddix Robinson is a Senior Applied Scientist in the Machine Learning Forecasting Group within AWS AI. She graduated with her PhD in Computational and Mathematical Engineering from the Institute of Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) at Stanford University. She was advised by Professor Margot Gerritsen and developed robust numerical methods to remove spurious temporal oscillations in the degenerate nonlinear Generalized Porous Medium Equation. She is passionate about the underlying numerical analysis\, linear algebra and optimization methods behind numerical PDEs and applying these techniques to deep learning. During her PhD\, she also did an internship at NVIDIA with Joe Eaton and Alex Fender\, and implemented an efficient and load-balanced sparse matrix vector multiplication (spmv) in cuSPARSE and nvGRAPH libraries. She is excited to be back at NVIDIA today. After graduating\, Danielle joined AWS in 2018\, and has been working on developing statistical and deep learning foundation models for time series forecasting including Chronos. Over the last several years\, she has been leading the research initiative on developing models for physics-constrained machine learning for scientific computing on the DeepEarth team. In particular\, she has researched how to apply ideas from numerical methods\, e.g.\, finite volume schemes\, to improve the accuracy of black-box ML models for PDEs with applications to ocean and climate models\, aerodynamics and chaotic systems. \n\n\n\nHosted by: Applied Mathematics\n\n\n\nLink: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96136632376?pwd=yb27lop8mnhnsairAPgezmVJZzFb74.1.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/am-seminar-science-in-the-age-of-foundation-models/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ph.d.-presentation-graphic-option-1.jpg
LOCATION: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96136632376?pwd=yb27lop8mnhnsairAPgezmVJZzFb74.1.
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260113T134000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260113T150000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251211T224403Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251219T220255Z
UID:10005826-1768311600-1768316400@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Macroeconomics & International Finance Seminar Series Presents: Dean Corbae
DESCRIPTION:Macroeconomics and International Finance Seminar\nDate: Tuesday\, January 13\, 2026\nTime: 1:40-3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Dean Corbae\nTitle: William Sellery Trukenbrod Chair in Finance\nAffiliation: University of Wisconsin – Madison\nHost: Grace Gu Steadmon\n \nSeminar title:  A Quantitative Model of Bank Merger Dynamics\n \n\nABSTRACT: \nWe develop a simple model of the bank merger process to study the rise in bank concentration following the deregulation of bank branching in the Riegle-Neal Act of 1994. Motivated by the data where currently 10 (dominant) banks have over 55 percent of the U.S. deposit market share while the remaining over 4000 (fringe) banks cover the rest\, we apply a dominant-fringe framework with a merger stage to model the rise in concentration following the change in regulation making interstate branching possible. First\, we study the effect of the merger wave on competition\, efficiency\, and stability of the banking industry. Then we use our model to understand the interaction between regulatory and monetary policy. Specifically\, how has the bank lending channel of monetary policy been affected by rising concentration; has it amplified or dampened the effectiveness of monetary policy? How might monetary policy itself contribute to mergers and rising concentration?
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/macroeconomics-international-finance-seminar-series-presents-dean-corbae/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Engineering 2 1156 High Street:geo:-122.0632371,37.0009723
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T014000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T014000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251211T212236Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251219T220029Z
UID:10005825-1768441200-1768441200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series Presents: Olivia Bordeu
DESCRIPTION:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar\nDate: Thursday\, January 15\, 2026\nTime: 1:40 – 3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Olivia Bordeu \nTitle: Assistant Professor of Economics \nAffiliation: University of California\, Berkeley  \nHost: Jeremy West \nSeminar title: Bank Branches and the Allocation of Capital across Cities\n\nABSTRACT: We study how banking market structure and branch networks shape the spatial mobility of capital. Using administrative loan-level data from Chile\, we show that bank-level deposit shocks lead receiving banks to increase lending and lower interest rates relative to other banks. Interest rate reductions are concentrated in cities where the bank has a small market share\, consistent with local market power. We develop and estimate a quantitative spatial model with multi-city banks\, oligopolistic local credit markets\, and frictions in interbank lending. These channels lead to spatial dispersion in interest rates and the marginal productivity of physical capital\, reducing GDP. Interbank frictions reduce steady-state GDP by 0.04%\, while spatial variation in loan markups reduces GDP by 0.5%. Bank mergers improve financial integration between cities but reduce competition\, generating heterogeneous welfare effects that depend on the merging banks’ geographic overlap.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/applied-microeconomics-and-trade-seminar-series-presents-olivia-bordeu/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Engineering 2 1156 High Street:geo:-122.0632371,37.0009723
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260120T134000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260120T150000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251211T224823Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T184635Z
UID:10005827-1768916400-1768921200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Behavioral\, Econometrics and Theory Seminar Series Presents: Roberto Corrao
DESCRIPTION:Economics Behavioral\, Econometrics\, & Theory Seminar\nDate: Tuesday\, January 20\, 2026\nTime: 1:40-3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Roberto Corrao\nTitle:  Assistant Professor of Economics \nAffiliation:  Stanford University\nHost: Gerelt Tserenjigmid\n \nSeminar title: Contractibility Design\n \nABSTRACT: \nWe introduce a model of incentive contracting in which the principal\, in addition to\nwriting contracts\, must engage in contractibility design: creating an evidence structure\nthat allows them to prove when the agent has breached the contract. Designing an\nevidence structure entails both (i) front-end costs borne ex ante\, such as those of\ndrafting contracts\, and (ii) back-end costs borne ex post\, such as those of generating\nevidence. We find that\, under even small front-end costs\, optimal contracts are coarse\,\nspecifying finitely many contingencies out of a continuum of possibilities. In contrast\,\nunder even large back-end costs\, optimal contracts are complete. Applied to the design\nof procurement contracts\, our results rationalize: (i) the discreteness of contracts\, (ii)\nthe presence of similarly vague contracts in low-stakes and high-stakes settings\, and\n(iii) the discontinuous adjustment of contracts to changes in the economic environment.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/behavioral-econometrics-and-theory-seminar-series-presents-roberto-corrao/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Engineering 2 1156 High Street:geo:-122.0632371,37.0009723
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260122T014000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260122T014000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20251211T230012Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T184752Z
UID:10005828-1769046000-1769046000@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series Presents: Guo Xu
DESCRIPTION:Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar\nDate: Thursday\, January 22\, 2026\nTime: 1:40 – 3:00 p.m.\nLocation: E2-499\n\n \n\nSpeaker: Guo Xu\nTitle: Associate Professor of Economics \nAffiliation: University of California\, Berkeley  \nHost: Ajay Shenoy \n  \nSeminar title: Personnel is Policy: Delegation and Political Misalignment in the Rulemaking Process\n\nABSTRACT: We combine comprehensive data on the U.S. federal rulemaking process with individuallevel personnel and voter registration records to study the consequences of partisan misalignment between regulators and the president. We present three main results. First\, even important pieces of new regulation are frequently delegated to bureaucrats who are politically misaligned. Second\, rules that are overseen by misaligned regulators take systematically longer to complete\, are more verbose\, generate more negative feedback from the public\, and are more likely to be challenged in court. Third\, in assigning regulators to rules\, agency leaders often face a sharp tradeoff between political alignment and expertise. Agency frictions notwithstanding\, they tend to resolve this tradeoff in favor of expertise.
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/applied-microeconomics-and-trade-seminar-series-presents-guo-xu/
LOCATION:Engineering 2\, Engineering 2 1156 High Street\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Seminars
GEO:37.0009723;-122.0632371
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street Santa Cruz CA 95064;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Engineering 2 1156 High Street:geo:-122.0632371,37.0009723
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260123T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260123T130000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20260120T214846Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260122T174111Z
UID:10008680-1769169600-1769173200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Statistics Seminar: Heterogeneous Statistical Transfer Learning
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Subhadeep Paul\, Associate Professor\, Ohio State University \nDescription: In the first part of the talk\, we consider the problem of Transfer Learning (TL) under heterogeneity from a source to a new target domain for high-dimensional regression with differing feature sets. Most homogeneous TL methods assume that target and source domains share the same feature space\, which limits their practical applicability. In applications\, the target and source features are frequently different due to the inability to measure certain variables in data-poor target environments. Conversely\, existing heterogeneous TL methods do not provide statistical error guarantees\, limiting their utility for scientific discovery.  Our method first learns a feature map between the missing and observed features\, leveraging the vast source data\, and then imputes the missing features in the target. Using the combined matched and imputed features\, we then perform a two-step transfer learning for penalized regression. We develop upper bounds on estimation and prediction errors\, assuming that the source and target parameters differ sparsely but without assuming sparsity in the target model. We obtain results for both when the feature map is linear and when it is nonparametrically specified as unknown functions.  Our results elucidate how estimation and prediction errors of HTL depend on the model’s complexity\, sample size\, the quality and differences in feature maps\, and differences in the models across domains. In the second part of the talk\, going beyond linear models\, I will discuss a transfer learning method for nonparametric regression using a random forest. The unknown source and target regression functions are assumed to differ for a small number of features. Our method obtains residuals from a source domain-trained Centered RF (CRF) in the target domain\, then fits another CRF to these residuals with feature splitting probabilities proportional to feature-residual distance covariance. We derive an upper bound on the mean square error rate of the procedure that theoretically brings out the benefits of transfer learning in random forests. Our results explain why shallower trees in the residual random forest in the target domain provide implicit regularization. \nBio:Subhadeep Paul is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at The Ohio State University. He is also a faculty fellow and previously served as a co-director of the foundations of data science and AI community at the Translational Data Analytics Institute at Ohio State. He received his PhD in Statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017. His research focuses on statistical analysis of complex network-linked data and transfer and federated statistical learning. His research has been funded by two NSF grants from the algorithms of threat detection and mathematics of digital twins programs. \nHosted by: Statistics Department \nZoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94465292273?pwd=bQ6MCX0OHYxHqgqNwbEYfgbKWqgNVy.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/statistics-seminar-heterogeneous-statistical-transfer-learning/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/option-3-1.png
LOCATION:https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94465292273?pwd=bQ6MCX0OHYxHqgqNwbEYfgbKWqgNVy.1
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T130000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20260121T182735Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260121T182735Z
UID:10009084-1769428800-1769432400@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Statistics Seminar: Boosting Biomedical Imaging Analysis via Distributed Functional Regression and Synthetic Surrogates
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Guannan Wang\, Associate Professor\, The College of William & Mary \nDescription: Generative AI has emerged as a powerful tool for synthesizing biomedical images\, offering new solutions to challenges such as data scarcity\, privacy constraints\, and modality imbalance. However\, the reliable use of synthetic images in scientific analysis requires principled statistical frameworks that can assess fidelity and rigorously quantify uncertainty. In this talk\, I present a distributed functional data analysis approach for comparing original and AI- generated biomedical images through their mean and covariance structures. Using spline-based representations on complex imaging domains\, we construct simultaneous confidence regions\, enabling formal inference on original-synthetic differences and providing statistical safeguards for downstream analyses. Building on this foundation\, I demonstrate how synthetic images can\nbe safely incorporated into functional regression models to learn spatially varying covariate effects when key imaging modalities are partially observed. Applications to large-scale neuroimaging studies illustrate how integrating generative AI with rigorous statistical inference enhances the reliability\, interpretability\, and scientific value of modern biomedical imaging analyses. \nBio: Guannan Wang is a Diamond Term Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at William &amp; Mary. She received a Ph.D. in Statistics and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Georgia in 2015. Her research focuses on the statistical foundations of generative AI\, distributed and federated learning\, and spatial and functional data analysis\, with applications to neuroimaging\, public health\, and environmental and social sciences. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading statistical journals\, including JASA\, JCGS\, Statistica Sinica\, Biometrics\, and JMLR\, and her work has been supported by the NIH\, NSF\, and the Simons Foundation. \nHosted by: Statistics Department \nZoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/92479478035?pwd=S6b9SNtCorApA04sISbDwWqaF3wyPZ.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/statistics-seminar-boosting-biomedical-imaging-analysis-via-distributed-functional-regression-and-synthetic-surrogates/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/option-3-2.png
LOCATION:https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/92479478035?pwd=S6b9SNtCorApA04sISbDwWqaF3wyPZ.1
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T170000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20260120T184336Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T184604Z
UID:10008394-1769443200-1769446800@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:AM Seminar: Probing Forced Responses and Causality in Data-Driven Climate Emulators: Conceptual Limitations and the Role of Reduced-Order Models
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Fabrizio Falasca\, New York University \nDescription: A central challenge in climate science and applied mathematics is developing data-driven models of multiscale systems that capture both stationary statistics and responses to external perturbations. Current neural climate emulators aim to resolve the atmosphere–ocean system in all its complexity but often struggle to reproduce forced responses\, limiting their use in causal studies such as Green’s function experiments. To explore the origin of these limitations\, we first examine a simplified dynamical system that retains key features of climate variability. We argue that the ability of emulators of multiscale systems to reproduce perturbed statistics depends critically on (i) the choice of an appropriate coarse-grained representation and (ii) careful parameterizations of unresolved processes. These insights highlight reduced-order models\, tailored to specific goals\, processes\, and scales\, as valid alternatives to general-purpose emulators. We next consider a real-world application\, developing a neural model to investigate the joint variability of the surface temperature field and radiative fluxes. The model infers a multiplicative noise process directly from data\, largely reproduces the system’s probability distribution\, and enables causal studies through forced responses. We discuss its limitations and outline directions for future work. These results expose key challenges in data-driven modeling of multiscale physical systems and underscore the value of coarse-grained\, stochastic approaches.Throughout\, we propose linear response theory as a rigorous framework for evaluating neural models beyond stationary statistics\, probing causal mechanisms\, and guiding model design. \nBio: Fabrizio Falasca is physicist working at the intersection of statistical physics\, applied mathematics and climate science. He acquired his master degree in Physics of Complex Systems in the University of Turin in Italy. He then moved to Atlanta to pursue a PhD in Climate Science under the supervision of Annalisa Bracco. In the last 5 years he has been working in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science in the group of Laure Zanna. His work span response theory\, causal inference\, data-driven modeling\, and their applications to climate dynamics and change. \n\n\n\n\n\nHosted by: Applied Mathematics \nZoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97450297092?pwd=Bp4GIgR8dAuBeCd1Sz9vXo8unkYWQW.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/am-seminar-probing-forced-responses-and-causality-in-data-driven-climate-emulators-conceptual-limitations-and-the-role-of-reduced-order-models/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ph.d.-presentation-graphic-option2.jpg
LOCATION: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97450297092?pwd=Bp4GIgR8dAuBeCd1Sz9vXo8unkYWQW.1
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260128T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260128T130000
DTSTAMP:20260422T062233
CREATED:20260121T235125Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T171042Z
UID:10009090-1769601600-1769605200@events.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Statistics Seminar:  Inferring Unobserved Trajectories from Multiple Temporal Snapshots
DESCRIPTION:Presenter: Yunyi Shen\, Ph.D. Candidate\, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science\, Massachusetts Institute of Technology \n\nDescription: Practitioners often aim to infer an unobserved population trajectory using sample snapshots at multiple time points. E.g. given single-cell sequencing data\, scientists would like to learn how gene expression changes over a cell’s life cycle. But sequencing any cell destroys that cell. So we can access data for any particular cell only at a single time point\, but we have data across many cells. The deep learning community has recently explored using Schrödinger bridges (SBs) and their extensions in similar settings. However\, existing methods either (1) interpolate between just two time points or (2) require a single fixed reference dynamic (often set to Brownian motion within SBs). But learning piecewise from adjacent time points can fail to capture long-term dependencies. And practitioners are typically able to specify a model family for the reference dynamic but not the exact values of the parameters within it. So I propose a new method that (1) learns the unobserved trajectories from sample snapshots across multiple time points and (2) requires specification only of a family of reference dynamics\, not a single fixed one. I demonstrate the advantages of my method on simulated and real data\, across applications in biology and oceanography. \nBio: Yunyi Shen is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He works in probabilistic machine learning and statistics on problems where data are scarce or noisy\, and as a result require adaptive data collection\, incorporation of domain-specific structure\, and careful downstream evaluation. Drawing on a background in the physical and life sciences\, his work is shaped by close interdisciplinary collaborations and motivated by scientific problems in biology and physics\, such as gene regulation\, fluid dynamics in cells\, wildlife monitoring\, and time-domain astronomy. \nHosted by: Statistics Department  \nZoom link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93769232971?pwd=msPkbjtoK3LiI9qHjLT1bv8idV23qU.1
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/statistics-seminar-inferring-unobserved-trajectories-from-multiple-temporal-snapshots/
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://events.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ph.d.-presentation-graphic-option2-1.jpg
LOCATION:https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93769232971?pwd=msPkbjtoK3LiI9qHjLT1bv8idV23qU.1
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR