This special ICTP QLS Colloquium will be given by Prof. Lenka Zdeborova. The talk will take place in the Euler Lecture Hall, on Thursday 13 December 2018 at 16.30 hrs.
Lenka Zdeborová is a researcher at CNRS working in the Institute of Theoretical Physics in CEA Saclay, France. She received a PhD in physics from University Paris-Sud and from Charles University in Prague in 2008. She spent two years in the Los Alamos National Laboratory as the Director's Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2014, she was awarded the CNRS bronze medal, in 2016 Philippe Meyer prize in theoretical physics and an ERC Starting Grant. She is editorial board member for Journal of Physics A, Physical review E and Physical Review X. 
Lenka's expertise is in applications of methods developed in statistical physics, such as advanced mean field methods, replica method and related message passing algorithms, to problems in machine learning, signal processing, inference and optimization. 

Abstract: "What are the problems we can solve using a computer?" is one of the very fundamental questions in science. I will describe how do we use statistical physics to address this question. I will discuss what insights physics brings to the field of algorithmic hardness and how such insights are used to develop better algorithms. I will give examples of applications in artificial neural networks, compressed sensing or data clustering. 
The QLS Colloquium is open and light refreshments will be served after the talk.