Weekly Seminars
Launched in Spring 2025, the AMSC program’s weekly seminar series is an exciting initiative designed to foster collaboration between faculty and students, showcase research, and encourage student recruitment. Held every Monday at 4:15 PM in MATH 3206 (or virtually via Zoom), the series offers both synchronous and asynchronous presentation options. For past seminars, please view our archive.
Seminar This Week
The first seminar of the Fall 2026 semester will take place in October with weekly sessions continuing throughout the term. Recordings of the seminars can be accessed by the UMD community at Fall 2026 AMSC Seminar Recordings. Stay tuned for updates!
Fall Seminar Schedule
- October 19: Madeleine Youngs (AOSC)
- October 26: Hong-Zhou Ye (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
- November 2: Dana Dachman-Soled (ECE & UMIACS)
- November 9: Abhinav Bhatele (CS & UMIACS)
- November 16: Chris Henderson (Math)
- November 30: Nuno Martins (ECE & ISR)
- December 7: Sanghamitra Dutta (ECE)
Fall 2026 Seminar Details
Madeleine Youngs (AOSC)
Date: Monday, October 19, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Madeleine Youngs (AOSC)
Title: New Approaches on Mixed Barotropic-Baroclinic Instability
Abstract: Baroclinic and barotropic instabilities are major dynamical features of the atmosphere and ocean. They can be characterized by an instability with a linear growth rate, and the instability can be identified by a necessary condition in the sign change of the potential vorticity gradient. However, there are still open questions about their dynamics, primarily how baroclinic (growing on vertical shear) and barotropic (horizontal shear) interact with each other through their potential vorticity. In this seminar I present several examples of these questions and how I attempt to address them. First, I investigate mixed instability and determine that the 1-dimensional conditions for instability are not sufficient in the mixed case. Then, I show an application of this to the Southern Ocean. Finally, I present work where I investigate a fundamental oscillation present in atmospheric baroclinic instability with a dynamical mode decomposition. Moving forward, my group will use these dynamical systems techniques to investigate cross-scale turbulence and larger climate-scale problems such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Collapse or Antarctic Ice Shelf tipping points.
Hong-Zhou Ye (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Date: Monday, October 26, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Hong-Zhou Ye (Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Title: Fast Forward to Infinity: Quantum Chemistry for Periodic Materials
Abstract: A central task of computational materials science is to accurately solve the many-electron Schrödinger equation for condensed-phase materials, which are commonly modeled as infinite systems under periodic boundary conditions. Materials quantum chemistry is an emerging field in which computational tools developed in the quantum chemistry community——historically focused on finite molecular systems——are being adapted and applied to periodic solids. The promise lies in the systematic improvability of quantum chemistry methods, but extending these methods to infinite systems presents new numerical challenges. In this talk, I will describe our recent work on tackling two such challenges: controlling errors associated with finite system sizes and finite basis sets. The first is to accelerate convergence to the infinite-system limit when evaluating the Hartree–Fock exchange energy, an important component of hybrid density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The second is to optimize atom-centered Gaussian basis functions for accurate and numerically stable electronic-structure calculations in periodic solids. I will conclude with examples of applications in computational materials science enabled by these new tools.
Dana Dachman-Soled (ECE & UMIACS)
Date: Monday, November 2, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Dana Dachman-Soled (ECE & UMIACS)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Chris Henderson (Math)
Date: Monday, November 16, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Chris Henderson (Math)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Nuno Martins (ECE & ISR)
Date: Monday, November 30, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Nuno Martins (ECE & ISR)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Sanghamitra Dutta (ECE)
Date: Monday, December 7, 2026
Time: 4:15 PM
Place: MATH 3206 (Colloquium Room)
Speaker: Sanghamitra Dutta (ECE)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD