The C&O department has 36 faculty members and 60 graduate students. We are intensely research oriented and hold a strong international reputation in each of our six major areas:
- Algebraic combinatorics
- Combinatorial optimization
- Continuous optimization
- Cryptography
- Graph theory
- Quantum computing
Read more about the department's research to learn of our contributions to the world of mathematics!
News
Three C&O faculty win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Prof. Alfred Menezes is named Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research
The Fellows program, which was established in 2004, is awarded to no more than 0.25% of the IACR’s 3000 members each year and recognizes “outstanding IACR members for technical and professional contributions to cryptologic research.”
C&O student Ava Pun receives Jessie W. H. Zou Memorial Award
She received the award in recognition of her research on simulating virtual training environments for autonomous vehicles, which she conducted at the start-up Waabi.
Events
Algebraic Graph Theory-Blas Fernandez
Title: 2-Y-homogeneous distance-biregular graphs
| Speaker: |
Blas Fernandez |
| Affiliation: | IMFM, Ljubljana; UP FAMNIT, Koper, Slovenia |
| Location: | Please contact Sabrina Lato for Zoom link. |
Abstract: Distance-biregular graphs (DBRGs) generalize distance-regular graphs by admitting a bipartition of the vertex set, where each part satisfies local distance-regularity under distinct intersection arrays. In recent years, a particular subclass of these graphs, those satisfying the so-called 2-Y-homogeneous condition, has garnered increasing attention due to its rich connections with combinatorial design theory and the representation theory of Terwilliger algebras. In this talk, we will examine the key structural conditions that characterize 2-Y-homogeneous DBRGs. We will survey recent progress in their classification under various combinatorial constraints, highlighting both known results and open problems.
Algebraic and enumerative combinatorics seminar-Laura Pierson
Title:Power sum expansions for the Kromatic symmetric function
| Speaker | Laura Pierson |
| Affiliation | University of Waterloo |
| Location | MC 5479 |
Abstract:The Kromatic symmetric function was introduced by Crew, Pechenik, and Spirkl (2023) as a K-analogue of Stanley's chromatic symmetric function. While the chromatic symmetric function encodes proper colorings of a graph (where each vertex gets a color and adjacent vertices get different colors), the Kromatic symmetric function encodes proper set colorings (where each vertex gets a nonempty set of colors and adjacent vertices get non-overlapping color sets). The expansion of the chromatic symmetric function in the basis of power sum symmetric functions has several nice interpretations, including one in terms of source components of acyclic orientations, due to Bernardi and Nadeau (2020). We lift that expansion formula to give expansion formulas for the Kromatic symmetric function using a few different K-analogues of the power sum basis. Our expansions are based on Lyndon heaps, introduced by Lalonde (1995), which are representatives for certain equivalence classes of acyclic orientations on clan graphs (graphs formed from the original graph by removing vertices and adding extra copies of vertices).
There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at the beginning graduate level starting at 1:30pm,
Tutte colloquium-Rose McCarty
Title:The first-order logic of graphs
| Speaker: | Rose McCarty |
| Affiliation: | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Location: | MC 5501 |
Abstract:Over the last ten years, many wonderful connections have been established between structural graph theory, computational complexity, and finite model theory. We give an overview of this area, focusing on recent progress towards understanding the "stable" case. We do not assume any familiarity with first-order logic