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
Laura Pierson wins Governor General's Gold Medal
The Governor General’s Gold Medal is one of the highest student honours awarded by the University of Waterloo.
Sepehr Hajebi wins Graduate Research Excellence Award, Mathematics Doctoral Prize, and finalist designation for Governor General's Gold Medal
The Mathematics Doctoral Prizes are given annually to recognize the achievement of graduating doctoral students in the Faculty of Mathematics. The Graduate Research Excellence Awards are given to students who authored or co-authored an outstanding research paper.
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.
Events
Algebraic & Enumerative Combinatorics - Adrien Segovia-The dimension of semidistributive extremal lattices
| Speaker: | Adrien Segovia |
| Affiliation: | Université du Québec à Montréal |
| Location: | MC 5417 |
Abstract: The order dimension of a partially ordered set (poset), which is often difficult to compute, is a measure of its complexity. Dilworth proved that the dimension of a distributive lattice is the width of its subposet on its join-irreducible elements. We generalize this result by showing that the dimension of a semidistributive extremal lattice is the chromatic number of the complement of its Galois graph (see Section 3.5 of arXiv:2511.18540). We apply this result to prove that the dimension of the lattice of torsion classes of a gentle tree with n vertices is equal to n. No advanced background is required to follow the talk.
There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at the beginning graduate level starting at 1:30pm in MC 5417.
Crypto Reading Group - Jack Zhao-Post-Quantum PKE from Unstructured Noisy Linear Algebraic Assumptions: Beyond LWE and Alekhnovich’s LPN
Abstract: Much of post-quantum PKE from unstructured noisy linear algebra relies on LWE or Alekhnovich’s LPN: both assume samples of the form (A, As+e) are computationally indistinguishable from (A, u), but with different noise models. LWE uses “short” errors, while Alekhnovich LPN uses sparse errors. Motivated by uncertainty around future cryptanalytic advances, we ask whether one can still obtain PKE from noisy linear assumptions even if both LWE and Alekhnovich LPN were broken. We talk about two new assumptions: Learning with Two Errors (LW2E), which mixes an LWE-style short error with an LPN-style sparse error, and Learning with Short and Sparse Errors (LWSSE), which uses errors that are simultaneously short and sparse but denser than Alekhnovich LPN. |
Tutte Colloquium -Graeme Smith-Quantum Capacities and Quantum Synergies
| Speaker: | Graeme Smith |
| Affiliation: | University of Waterloo |
| Location: | MC 5501 |
Abstract: A central goal of quantum information theory is to determine the capacities of a quantum channel for sending different sorts of information. I’ll highlight the new and fundamentally quantum aspects that arise in quantum information theory compared to the classical theory. These include the central role of entanglement, nonadditivity, and synergies between resources. I will also discuss some challenging open questions that we will have to solve to push the theory forward.