Funding for 14 PhD students in the field of optimization in FWF doc.funds project

The approval of this project represents a milestone in the success story of the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Klagenfurt. It’s also a great achievement on the part of the participating professors and particularly for the 32-year-old coordinator, Michaela Szölgyenyi. Starting in October 2020, the project will employ ten young scientists (including eight women), with four more positions yet to be filled. The launch of the doc.funds doctoral school entitled “Modeling – Analysis – Optimization of discrete, continuous, and stochastic systems” will be celebrated on 27 October 2020 with an opening colloquium.

Invitation to the opening colloquium
on 27 October 2020 (16:15 – 17:45 hrs) | Lecture Hall 3 | University of Klagenfurt
Opening remarks by Vice-Rector Friederike Wall and Dean Gerhard Friedrich
as well as the coordinator Michaela Szölgyenyi
Welcome and introduction of the doctoral students
Colloquium lecture by Birgit Rudloff (Vienna University of Economics and Business) on “Multivariate Dynamic Programming: from the Mean-Risk Problem to Dynamic Nash Games”
Please note: limited number of participants. You must register in advance by writing to beate [dot] simma [at] aau [dot] at.

Optimization problems accompany us all the time in our every-day lives. For example, supermarkets guarantee the supply by optimizing the transportation routes of their goods, electricity providers optimize the supply of electricity, and highways are built so that passing cars produce as little noise as possible. For this, discrete, stochastic, which means influenced by randomness, and continuous mathematical models are used, which need to be analysed.

In order to solve such problems, it is often essential to have a multi-perspective view and combine the knowledge of several mathematical sub-disciplines to create synergies. In crossing these borders lies great innovative potential.

It is the aim of the doc.funds doctoral school and its nine professors from the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Klagenfurt to provide PhD students with the mathematical knowledge necessary for understanding and solving challenging mathematical questions, which arise from optimization problems in every-day life. The novel aspect here lies in the combination of multiple perspectives: “There usually isn’t much of an exchange between mathematical sub-disciplines. Our approach is to combine them in order to address previously unsolvable problems from different perspectives”, Michaela Szölgyenyi explains.

The deputy coordinator is Barbara Kaltenbacher, further faculty members are Clemens Heuberger, Philipp Hungerländer, Christian Pötzsche, Franz Rendl, Elena Resmerita, Gunter Spöck and Angelika Wiegele.

The PhD students participating in the doc.funds doctoral school are:

• Johannes Hofmeister (Department of Statistics): stochastic control
• Phuoc Truong Huynh (Department of Mathematics): parameter identification
• Dunja Pucher (Department of Mathematics): discrete optimization
• Iris Rammelmüller (Department of Statistics): Bayesian statistics and parameter identification
• Jutta Rath (Department of Mathematics): combinatorics
• Teresa Rauscher (Department of Mathematics): parameter identification
• Verena Schwarz (Department of Statistics): computational stochastics and dynamical systems
• Sarah Selkirk (Department of Mathematics): combinatorics
• Melanie Siebenhofer (Department of Mathematics): discrete optimization