{"id":1145,"date":"2025-07-03T21:23:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T21:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2025-07-16T22:00:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:00:48","slug":"vanderbilt-university-department-of-mathematics-hosts-the-international-constructive-functions-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/2025\/07\/03\/vanderbilt-university-department-of-mathematics-hosts-the-international-constructive-functions-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Department hosts International Constructive Functions 2025 Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vanderbilt University Department of Mathematics hosted the international Constructive Functions 2025<\/em> which was held on the university campus May 19-22.\u00a0\u00a0 The conference was in large part a recognition of the mathematical work of Distinguished Professor Edward Saff, as well as a celebration of his 80th<\/sup> birthday.\u00a0 \u00a0The local organizers of the conference were Liudmyla Kryvonos, Ryan Matzke, and Doug Hardin.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Professor Doron Lubinsky of Georgia Tech delivering the 2025 Shanks Lecture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The conference attracted approximately 200 participants from 24 countries, making it the largest conference in the series of 37 Shanks conferences hosted by the Department of Mathematics.\u00a0 It was supported by the Shanks Endowment and the National Science Foundation.\u00a0 \u00a0The welcome reception was sponsored in part by Springer Nature publishers.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Professor Igor Shevchuk presents the medal and academic regalia to Ed Saff for the honorary doctorate he received from Taras Shevchenko University, Kyiv, Ukraine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to 10 plenary talks, there were 17 mini-symposia, and 6 parallel sessions with topics that included Coulomb gases, orthogonal polynomials, complex analysis, approximation theory, frame theory, and inverse problems.<\/p>\n

The conference featured the distinguished Shanks Lecturer, Professor Doron Lubinsky from Georgia Tech.\u00a0\u00a0 It also celebrated the\u00a040th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of\u00a0the founding of the high-ranking research journal\u00a0Constructive Approximation<\/em>,\u00a0<\/strong>co-founded by Ed Saff and based at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

The annual Shanks conference is supported by the Shanks Lectureship Endowment, which was made to honor Olivia and Baylis Shanks.\u00a0 E. Baylis Shanks was chair of the department from 1956 to 1969 and was faculty from 1947 to 1979. \u00a0\u00a0As chair, Baylis initiated our graduate program in Mathematics and advised its first two graduates, among his many other accomplishments.<\/p>\n

The Plenary Talks and Titles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter Dragnev<\/a>\u00a0(Purdue University \u2013 Fort Wayne)
\n\u201cMy Journey Through Mathematics with Ed Saff\u201d<\/p>\n

Arno Kuijlaars<\/a>\u00a0(KU Leuven)
\n\u201cEquilibrium Measures on a Riemann Surface and Random Tilings\u201d<\/p>\n

Ana Loureiro<\/a>\u00a0(University of Kent)
\n\u201cA free journey from higher order recurrence relations to the zero distribution\u201d<\/p>\n

Doron Lubinsky<\/a>\u00a0(Georgia Institute of Technology), Shanks Lecturer
\n\u201cA Selection of Ed\u2019s Saffires\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrei Mart\u00ednez-Finkelshtein<\/a>\u00a0(Baylor University)
\n\u201cThe Many Facets of Iterated Differentiation\u201d<\/p>\n

Ana Matos<\/a> (Universite de Lille)
\n\u201cSolving an Equilibrium problem using Rational Approximation\u201d<\/p>\n

Jill Pipher<\/a> (Brown University)
\n\u201cMathematical Ideas in Lattice Based Public Key Cryptography\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian Sloan<\/a>\u00a0(University of New South Wales)
\n\u201cQMC designs \u2013 cubature on the sphere without polynomial exactness\u201d<\/p>\n

Eitan Tadmor<\/a>\u00a0(University of Maryland)
\n\u201cSwarm-Based Gradient Descent Method for Non-Convex Optimization\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Trefethen<\/a> (Harvard University)
\n\u201cAAA Approximation and Potential Theory\u201d<\/p>\n

The Minisymposia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inverse Source Problems and Approximations.<\/p>\n

Energy Minimization, Discrepancy, and Potential Theory.<\/p>\n

Spherical Codes and Designs<\/p>\n

Not Only Polynomials: New Perspectives on Multivariate Approximation<\/p>\n

Advances on Coulomb and Riesz Gases<\/p>\n

Constructive Approximation and Equilibrium Problems \u2013 Related Topics and Applications<\/p>\n

Applied and Computational Complex Analysis<\/p>\n

Kernel Methods for Partial Differential Equations on Manifolds<\/p>\n

Extremal Problems and Spectral Theory of Soliton Gases for Integrable Systems<\/p>\n

Symmetric Subspace Configurations<\/p>\n

Orthogonal Polynomials and Applications<\/p>\n

Functions of a Complex Variable<\/p>\n

Multivariate Splines and their Applications<\/p>\n

Approximation Theory, PDE and Applications<\/p>\n

Orthogonal Polynomials, Integrable Systems, and Riemann-Hilbert Problems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vanderbilt University Department of Mathematics hosted the international Constructive Functions 2025 which was held on the university campus May 19-22.\u00a0\u00a0 The conference was in large part a recognition of the mathematical work of Distinguished Professor Edward Saff, as well as a celebration of his 80th birthday.\u00a0 \u00a0The local organizers of the conference were Liudmyla…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":1179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3],"tags":[5],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/69\/2025\/07\/16220010\/shanks25.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/math\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}