Conference: Meeting on Applied Algebraic Geometry

This award provides support for the Meeting on Applied Algebraic Geometry (MAAG) conference to be held at Georgia Tech in April of 2027. Applied algebraic geometry is an emerging area of mathematics that develops new mathematical tools for solving problems arising in science, engineering, and data-driven technologies. Many modern challenges, including artificial intelligence, computer vision, optimization, robotics, and electric power systems, can be formulated using systems of polynomial equations, and the sets of their common zeros form geometric structures that can be studied using the powerful theory of algebraic geometry. MAAG will bring together researchers, students, and early-career scientists from across the southeastern United States to share recent advances and build new collaborations in this rapidly growing field. The conference provides a regional forum that strengthens the research community, expands access to frontier mathematical research, and supports the development of the future STEM workforce through invited lectures, poster presentations, mentoring opportunities, and hands-on tutorials in open-source mathematical software. By connecting researchers across mathematics, statistics, computer science, and engineering, the conference promotes interdisciplinary innovation and advances mathematical foundations that support emerging technologies. The conference will focus on current research progress in applied algebraic geometry, emphasizing computational methods for systems of polynomial equations and their applications. Scientific topics include numerical algebraic geometry, combinatorial and tropical algebraic geometry, polynomial optimization, algebraic statistics, tensor methods, computer vision, machine learning, and scientific computing. Presentations will highlight recent advances in homotopy continuation methods, symbolic and numerical algorithms, convex and polyhedral techniques, and computational software such as Macaulay2. The meeting will consist of invited research lectures, contributed poster presentations, lightning talks, software tutorials, and informal discussion sessions designed to foster collaboration among researchers at different career stages. An emphasis will be placed on supporting graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and other early-career faculty while also encouraging interdisciplinary interactions that stimulate new mathematical research and the development of novel computational methods in applied algebraic geometry. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.