Don't miss the next Junior Colloquium (and the pizza before!)

JUNIOR COLLOQUIUM
TIME: 3:35 - 4:25
ROOM: Ayres 405
SPEAKER: Dr. Amy Sczcepanski, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
TITLE: Big Data and Big Computers: Quantitative techniques for solving 
big problems
ABSTRACT: Technology has advanced to the point where data-driven 
solutions are replacing experts' hunches when it comes to decision 
making. The coverage of the 2012 presidential election included 
headlines like, "How Obama's data crunchers helped him win" (CNN, 
November 8), and Nate Silver is one of the most famous nerds in the 
country. An article in the New York Times Magazine (February 16, 2012) 
explains how Target extracts information from its transactions to make 
business decisions; grocery stores will give you a discount in exchange 
for tracking your data with a loyalty card. Tech companies, like 
Facebook and Google, use information about their users to sell ads. In 
the scientific realm, big data challenges appear in fields ranging from 
bio-informatics to astrophysics. Solving big data problems requires a 
clever mix of techniques from statistics, mathematics, and computer 
science. We will introduce the mathematics behind some of these 
strategies and talk about directions in the field. This talk should be 
accessible to any undergraduate with an interest in a quantitative 
field. (There may also be tangents about interesting mathematical 
applications to not-so-big data as well.)

Pizza will be available at 3:00.