AI and Quantum at the interface of Chemistry and Mathematics

The AI and Quantum at the interface of Chemistry and Mathematics' research group is hosted by both the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at the uOttawa. Our research is developed in the framework of the Canada Research Chair (see press release), the AI4Science @uOttawa and the Nexus for Quantum Technologies Institute.

[OQMG Network] We are part of the Research Network between Ottawa, Queen's, McMaster and Guelph. We are looking for talended PhD students and Postdocs to join our team and perform research at the interface of mathematics, chemistry, quantum physics, scientific computing and artificial intelligence.

[Open Positions] Several PhD and Postdoctoral positions are available in our research group as well as many research oportunities for undergraduate and master students. Graduate students and young researchers from Ukraine are warmly encouraged to contact us.

There is no valid justification for a war and the genocide that is happening in Ukraine. I support the UN statement on Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. Similarly, I stand with Palestine.

Diversity Axioms

We do agree with the diversity axioms of Federico Ardila (and extended it to Science):
Axiom 1. Mathematical (Scientific) talent is distributed equally among different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries.
Axiom 2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical (scientific) experiences.
Axiom 3. Mathematics (Sciences) is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs.
Axiom 4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

Recent Activities (2024-)

- The Institute of Pure and Applied Matheamtics (IPAM) will be hosting the Thematic Program on Non-commutative Optimal Transport. Applications are open to attend and participate for extended periods up to the entire length of the program. Some members of our group will participate in the program

- From 3rd to 6th March 2025, Heather Kulik, Stefan Vuckovic and AG are organizing the workshop "Density Functional Theory and Artificial Intelligence learning from each other" at the CECAM, Lausanne, Switzerland.

- Mohammad Ahmadpoor, Zak Brannan, AG, Zhiyi Lin, Nataliia Monina, and Pavlo Pelikh will visit the Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from January to March to participate in the Summer research program.

- On December 5th, AG will give a talk at the Theoretical Physics Institute Seminar of the University of Alberta.

- On November 29th, AG will visit Christoph Ortner and give a talk at the Math Colloquium at the University of British Columbia.

- Dohyoung Ko secured first place in the Undergraduate Poster Exhibition (Mathematics and Data Science) at Penn State for his project titled “Quadratic Entropic Regularized Matrix-valued Optimal Transport,” conducted as part of the 2024 Fields Institute Undergraduate Program.

- From 13th-18th October, AG gave a series of lectures at the International Centre for Mathematics in Ukraine in Kyiv.

- Pavlo Pelikh and Denys Ruban were awared a MITACS Accelerated project in collaboration with Kinaxis. They started working on October 1st.

- Zak Brannan and Nataliia Monina participated in the workshop Calculus of Variations: A New Generation, which was held from September 16 to 20 in Bonn, Germany.

- In September 2024, together with with Kasia Pernal, Alessandro Rudi and Dario Trevisan, we organized the workshop on Quantum Optimal Transport and Applications at the Palazzone della Scuola Normale in Cortona (Italy). Nataliia and Pavlo gave talks on their PhD research.

- Sumiya Baasandorj, Mohammad Ahmadpoor and Michelle Richer joined our research group as postdoctoral researchers.

- Alex Dzhenzherov joined our research group as a PhD student (in Physics). Alex will be co-supervised with Prof. Khabat Heshami (NRC).

- The uOttawa Summer School took place in August 12th-23rd at the University of Ottawa. Applicants have been already awarded scholarships to attend to travel to Ottawa and attend the school.

- Katarine de Souza Domingues (Sao Paulo, Brazil) wil join our research group in August as a visiting research student. She will be working on Mathematical aspects of Machine Learning.

- AG attended and gave a talk at the 30th Canadian Symposium on Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (CSTCC), in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 21-25th July 2024.

- AG gave a mini-course at the Summer School "Probability, Geometry, and Machine Learning" that took place 14-21 July 2024 in Lviv, Ukraine.

- Rieli dos Santos (Londrina, Brazil) received a MITACS scholarship and joined our research group in July. She will be working on Condensed Matter Theory.

- Our research group took part of the annual meeting of our Ontario OQMG Network in Queen's University from 24th to 30th June 2024.

- On June 17, AG gave a talk at the Fields Institute Colloquium in Applied Math.

- Denys, Ivan, Mariam and Zak attended the Queen's Mathematics Summer School 2024.

- Beatrice Aresi (Genova, Italy), Dohyoung Ko (Penn, USA), Maria Scapin (Parana, Brazil) and Melissa Junqueira (Sao Paulo, Brazil) joined our research group in the framework of the Fields Institute Undergraduate Research Program.

- AG gave a talk at the conference ``50 years of Calculus of Variations" that will take place at the University of Pisa from 20 to 22th May 2024. The conference will also celebrate the 70th birthday of Giuseppe Buttazzo.

- On May 10, AG attended a scientific discussion at the event “Italian Talent in Canada: Excellence and Collaboration”, which is organized by the Embassy of Italy in Canada and take place at Carleton University.

- On May 6th, Zhiyi Lin, Nataliia Monina and Pavlo Pelikh will gave talks on the TheoryFest workshop co-organized with Khabat Heshami and Michael Schuurman (NRC) at uOttawa.

- Alex Dzhenzherov received a MITACS scholarship and joined our research group in May. He will be working at the interface of Quantum Information and Quantum Chemistry.

- Anray Liu joined our research group in May as an undergraduate intern. He will be working on computational aspects of Density Functional Theory.

- Cédric Bierlaire joined our research group in May as an undergraduate intern. He will be working on Mathematical aspects of Machine Learning.

- AG will visited the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM, USA), that has a new home at Caltech, in the week of April 22-26, 2024.

- Nataliia Monina gave a talk at the University of Bonn on April 15th.

- AG gave a seminar at the The School of Mathematics of Latin America and the Caribbean (EMALCA) 2024 - in honor of Jacob Palis. The year the event take place in Uberaba (Brazil), in the weeks of April 1st-12th.

- For familiar reasons, AG could not attend the special session ``Recent Advances in Optimal Transport and Applications" to be held at the upcoming Spring Eastern Sectional meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) to be held in Washington, DC from April 6 - 7, 2024.

- Pavlo Pelikh visited the Machine Learning Genoa Center at the University of Genoa (Italy) in April.

- From 27th to 29th March, Pavlo Pelikh attended the Les journées SMAI-MODE at the University of Lyon.

- On March 21st, AG gave a talk at the Machine Learning Genoa Center at the University of Genoa (Italy).

- Nataliia Monina attended the Workshop on Optimal Transport from Theory to Applications -- Interfacing Dynamical Systems, Optimization, and Machine Learning -- that will take place in Berlin from 11th-15th March 2024.

- Pavlo Pelikh attended both mini-courses and workshop on Particle Systems in Dynamics, Optimization, and Learning at the Lagrange Center in Paris, 5th-7th March 2024.

- Nataliia Monina gave a talk on Quantum Optimal Transport at the Department of Mathematics seminar at the University of Genoa.

- Zhiyi Lin is visiting the Machine Learning Genoa Center at the University of Genoa (Italy) during the winter term.

- Nataliia Monina was awarded the uOttawa PhD mobility in Germany. Nataliia will visit the University of Bonn in the Winter term and work with Lorenzo Portinale and Karl-Theodor Sturm.

- From 12th to 16th February 2024, AG attended the traditional Italian Calculus of Variations workshop in Riccione (Italy).

- Mariam Elsayed, Denys Ruban and Ivan Zhytkevych have joined our group as MSc student. They will be working on mathematial aspects of machine learning.

- During the Winter term, AG will be a visiting professor at the University of Genoa and the Machine Learning Genoa Center. We acknowledge finantial support from the University of Genoa and the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS).