Program

Monday, October 14, 2024 (Eastern Time, UTC−05:00)

Venue: TBD @ VIS

Title: Topological Data Analysis and Visualization in Biological Images and Videos

Professor Peter Bubenik, University of Florida

Abstract: Topological data analysis (TDA) uses methods from geometry, topology, algebra and analysis to learn from the shape of data. Since the methods are mathematically sophisticated it is crucial to have good visualizations that allow scientists and engineers to interpret its results. I will introduce some aspects of TDA in the context of three applications to biological images and videos. In the first, we use TDA to capture the the structure of the actin skeleton in cells. In the second, we use TDA and representative cycles to produce synthetic videos of characteristic motions of an important biological organism, C. elegans. In the third, we apply TDA to recordings on the brain activity of C. elegans and determine the neurons most closely related to the detected topological signal.

Speaker

Peter Bubenik develops new tools for summarizing and visualizing large, complex, high-dimensional data by combining ideas from algebraic topology and machine learning. Furthermore, he works with collaborators to use these ideas to analyze data. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2003 and was a postdoc at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland from 2003 to 2005. From 2005 to 2015 he was faculty at Cleveland State University and since 2015 he has been at the University of Florida. From 2014 to 2017 he was the founding director of the Applied Algebraic Topology Research Network (AATRN) and since then has served on its advisory board.