National University of Singapore SIAM Student Chapter Hosts 12th Symposium

The National University of Singapore (NUS) SIAM Student Chapter hosted its 12th symposium on May 18, 2023. This symposium—the first in-person chapter activity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—owes its success to the concerted efforts of NUS professors Weizhu Bao and Yao Yao, who organized the event jointly with the East Asia Section of SIAM (EASIAM) Workshop on Applied and Computational Mathematics. This collaboration attracted a wide variety of esteemed speakers and attendees (both students and professors) from the EASIAM section and beyond, including SIAM Past President Susanne Brenner of Louisiana State University and EASIAM President Yang Xiang of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

The one-day 12th Symposium of the SIAM Student Chapter at NUS comprised a significant part of the larger, three-day EASIAM event. NUS SIAM Student Chapter officers invited 10 senior Ph.D. students to speak at the symposium. Eight of these speakers were from NUS—one from the Department of Statistics and the rest from the Department of Mathematics—and the remaining two hailed from Sun Yat-sen University and HKUST. Each individual delivered a 30-minute presentation on their ongoing research; topics included optimization, statistics, machine learning, data science, probability, and pure and numerical partial differential equations.

After the morning session, attendees enjoyed a buffet lunch that encouraged participating students to engage in fruitful discourse with both their peers and more senior academics. During the lunch, Brenner—who gave a plenary talk on “Novel Finite Element Methods for Elliptic Optimal Control Problems with Pointwise State Constraints” at the EASIAM workshop the day before—shared valuable insights about the organization of post-pandemic student chapter activities. She encouraged students to take advantage of the SIAM Visiting Lecturer Program and free SIAM student membership, along with the various opportunities that accompany it; this guidance was exceptionally pertinent for future NUS chapter officers. Brenner also discussed her own academic journey and personal research experiences, and offered heartfelt advice to female attendees in particular — endorsing their persistent involvement and advancement in the fields of applied mathematics and computational science.

After an additional five talks in the afternoon session, all of the speakers were invited for dinner and a leisurely walk around Marina Bay. This excursion provided them with the chance to appreciate the splendid night views of Singapore while engaging in conversation about a variety of scientific and nonscientific topics alike.

As the first in-person endeavor of the NUS SIAM Student Chapter in recent years, the symposium sought to revive and reconnect the community. With continued support from the NUS Department of Mathematics and its students, the chapter intends to maintain its vigor and dynamism with similar events in the coming years.