Speaker:  Prof. Mary Silber, Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Chicago

URL for Speaker:  http://www.esam.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/profiles/silber-mary.html

Location:  LSK 460

Intended Audience:  Public

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.

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.

Refreshments start 15 minutes before the talk in the IAM Lounge, Room 306.