Problems Across the Applied Sciences and Engineering Engage New Student Chapter in Magdeburg

Germany’s third SIAM student chapter held its opening workshop in Magdeburg on June 19, 2013. The chapter is a collaboration of two institutions in the city of Magdeburg: the Otto von Guericke University (OVGU) and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems (MPI DCTS). At the time of the workshop, the newly formed chapter already had 20 members from a variety of areas in applied mathematics and engineering.

As the chapter aims to foster the use of mathematics across the applied sciences, we invited speakers from different scientific backgrounds. Peter Benner, managing director of MPI DCTS, opened the workshop, after which we heard from our principal guest: Edda Klipp of Humboldt University, Berlin, who spoke about yeast cell cycles and the related mathematical modeling.

We had also invited Matthias Stein (MPI DCTS), who discussed relativistic effects for electrons in magnetic fields, and Sebastian Sager (OVGU), who described the optimization of time-dependent processes. Members of the student chapter rounded out the program with presentations of their current PhD research.

The workshop was well received by students and faculty from both MPI DCTS and OVGU, despite record high temperatures for the date. The variety of topics covered by the speakers was matched by the interests of the audience, which included the mathematical and biological sciences and engineering.