Next Seminars

SIAM Chapter Seminar - October 2023

Get to know what your fellow Ph.D students are working on!

Time: 25.10.2023 at 4:00 pm

Place: 2.09.2.22. Details are announced via mailing list "SIAM-chapter-list", or ask Franziska or Hans.

Speaker: Maximilian Kloppe

Topic: A Phase-Field Model of Elastic Surfaces in Flow

Abstract: 

The small thickness of membranes, shells and capsules enables their efficient approximation as hyper-surfaces. Phase-field modeling provides a versatile tool to capture the motion of such elastic hyper-surfaces in fluid flow under bending and surface tension forces. However, the in-plane stretching of the surface has been widely neglected or approximated by inextensibility of the material.

In this talk, we develop a novel phase-field model for elastic hyper-surfaces in Navier–Stokes fluids, which includes bending, tension, and in-plane stretching. The model is based on a coupling of a phase-field model for two-phase flow to a fully Eulerian description of the surface deformation tensor. We apply the method to microfluidic experiments on lipid vesicles and illustrate how the results can be used to better understand the mechanical properties of cell membranes.

SAVE THE DATE: The SIAM-Chapter Christmas Social Event - 29.11.23

More information coming soon, stay excited!

Your SIAM Officers

Past Seminars

SIAM Chapter Seminar - September 2023

Get to know what your fellow Ph.D students are working on!

Time: 27.09.2023 at 4:00 pm

Place: 2.09.2.22. Details are announced via mailing list "SIAM-chapter-list", or ask Franziska or Hans.

Speaker: Paula Pirker Diaz

Topic: Self-regulation of a network of Kuramoto oscillators (Complexity Science and Complex Systems Theory)

Abstract: Persistent global synchronization of a neuronal network is considered a pathological, undesired state, and it is often caused by the loss of neurons or their regulatory agents, e.g. glial cells. 
Considering a brain-like network characterized by a modular organization combined with a dynamic description of the nodes as Kuramoto oscillators, we have applied a self-regulation mechanism to keep local synchronization while avoiding global synchronization at the same time. In this talk, I am going to explain our model and the results obtained, which show that the desired state is achievable despite the simplicity of the approximation.

SIAM Chapter Seminar - July 2023

Get to know what your fellow Ph.D students are working on!

Time: 26.07.2023 at 4:00 pm

Place: 2.09.0.17. Details are announced via mailing list "SIAM-chapter-list", or ask Franziska or Hans.

Speaker: Johannes Tillil

Topic: Random Forests with Grouped Variables in Application to Disease Module Detection

Abstract: Random forests use single variables for splitting nodes in decision trees. By using multiple important correlated variables simultaneously for node splitting, one might increase the predictive power of random forests. This can be done with linear combinations of specific variable groups, e.g. modules in networks. We performed a simulation study evaluating the approach for detecting modules in gene expression networks that are causal for some phenotype and found slight improvements over standard random forests.

SIAM Chapter Seminar - May 2023

Get to know what your fellow Ph.D students are working on!

Time: 31.05.23 at 4:00 pm

Place: 2.09.2.22. Details are announced via mailing list "SIAM-chapter-list", or ask Franziska or Hans.

Speaker: Vira Raichenko

Topic: Applications of Persistent Homology to silkworm cocoons

Abstract: A silkworm weaves the incredibly interesting and intricate structure of the cocoon which can be a great inspiration for bio-materials. Therefore, we are interested in developing a framework for understanding the cocoon fiber network through geometrical and topological methods and developing it further for fibrous and entangled materials. In this talk, I am going to give an overview of methods from topological data analysis that can be used for applications to 3D image data, and, in particular, to the scans of silk-worm cocoons.

We invite all Bachelor, Master and PhD Students to join us!

General Information

Potsdam SIAM Student Chapter

We are happy to announce that we founded a SIAM Student Chapter in Potsdam in February 2021. See here for general information about SIAM student chapters.

The Student Chapter is an association of students at the University of Potsdam.

What are the benefits of being organised as a SIAM Student Chapter?

  • student members of the Chapter can get free SIAM membership
  • networking and collaboration opportunities with other Chapters
  • funded participation in SIAM Annual Meetings
  • funding for local activities like lunch discussions or lectures by guest speakers

Who can become a member?

  • the chapter is open to everyone who is interested
  • we especially encourage Master's students and PhD students to join

How to become a member?

  • subscribe to our mailing list here: subscribe to our mailing list here or join one of our meetings
  • there are no costs or duties for members.

General information:

  • President: Franziska
  • Vice-President: Hans
  • Secretary: Giuseppe
  • Treasurer: Josie
  • EMail addresse: siamchapter[at]uni-potsdam[dot]de
  • You want to stay up to date? Then subscribe to our mailing list here.

If you have any questions feel free to ask the PhD representatives Franzi and Hans. The faculty advisor of this Chapter is Prof. Dr. Melina Freitag.

Previous Highlights

SIAM SLAM

Can you summarize the content of your research in 3 minutes? Can you do it in an entertaining way? Then our SIAM Slam might be for you!

As a joint initiative of our SIAM Chapter and the SIAM Chapters of Aachen, Heidelberg and Magdeburg, we would like to invite you to SIAM Slam. There, different participants will present their theses or other scientific findings in a very short amount of time. The audience will choose the most entertaining and informative presentation.

The event will take place via zoom on the 10th of June at 18:00. Feel free to ask Florian for the login data.

Each participant will have exactly 3 minutes for their presentation. A slideshow is allowed, however, we advise reducing the number of slides. There will be a prize for the best presentation.

If you just want to be a spectator, you are welcome to join as well. Then, no registration is needed. In the second part of the event, we will run a short quiz based on the presentations. Here, the winner will also get a small prize. We plan to close the event with an opportunity to together play games online.

If you always wanted to try your hand at being a science communicator, this is your time. Who knows, maybe you are the next Richard Feynman or Stephen Hawking? :)