IAM-PIMS Distinguished Colloquium: Mary Silber

  • Date: 04/08/2013
Speaker(s):
Mary Silber, Northwestern University, Chicago
Location: 

University of British Columbia

Topic: 

Symmetry-breaking Bifurcations: Studies in Control and Exploitation

Description: 

This talk will highlight some investigations into controlling pattern formation. The approaches exploit the inherent spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal symmetries associated with targeted temporally-periodic patterns. Examples will include delayed-feedback control of symmetrically-coupled nonlinear oscillators, and the design of parametrically-excited surface standing wave patterns. A final study investigates changes, with diminishing resources, of large scale vegetation patterns, and examines the proposal that such transitions can be exploited as early warning signs of desertification.

Other Information: 

Location: LSK 460

 

Mary Silber received her PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, at Georgia Tech and at Caltech, before moving to Northwestern University as a professor. Her research interests are in dynamical systems and their applications to a wide variety of problems in the physical and biological sciences. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and is a SIAM Fellow.