OIST Seminar "The Development of a Mathematics Research Center: MSRI and its History" and "Planning a random walk: Commutative Algebra in Statistics"

OIST seminar in two parts "The Development of a Mathematics Research Center: MSRI and its History" and "Planning a random walk: Commutative Algebra in Statistics" by Dr. David Eisenbud, Director of Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), and Professor of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley.

Summary:

Part 1) The Development of a Mathematics Research Center: MSRI and its History

MSRI opened its doors to its first programs in the fall of 1982. Over the years it has grown and changed, becoming a center known very widely among mathematicians. I will survey the original motivations and the subsequent development, and give some account of the many activities in which the Institute now engages.
 
Part 2) Planning a random walk: Commutative Algebra in Statistics

Dr. Eisenbud will explain how a basic construction in commutative algebra called Groebner bases can help to measure statistical variations by random sampling. 

The seminar will be in English. 

About the Speaker:

David Eisenbud served as Director of MSRI from 1997 to 2007, and began a new term in 2013.
He received his PhD in mathematics in 1970 at the University of Chicago under Saunders MacLane and Chris Robson, and was on the faculty at Brandeis University before coming to Berkeley, where he became Professor of Mathematics in 1997. He served from 2009 to 2011 as Director for Mathematics and the Physical Sciences at the Simons Foundation, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Foundation. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Bonn, and Paris. Eisenbud’s mathematical interests range widely over commutative and non-commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, topology, and computer methods.

Eisenbud’s interests outside of mathematics include theater, music and juggling. He is the co-author of a paper on the mathematics of juggling. He plays the flute and sings Bach, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann….