Tapas and Dynamics at AIMS 2014

By David Uminsky
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I just returned from Madrid, Spain, where I had the opportunity to participate in the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) 2014 Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications (June 7- June 11). As one can imagine, I got to see many old friends and eat some great tapas, but here I want to offer an overview of the conference for both previous and prospective attendees. AIMS has started to become the off-year gathering for those looking to attend a dynamics conference in between Snowbird’s biennial cycle. So how does AIMS square up to its better-known cousin in Utah?

This year, AIMS was hosted at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid with over 2500 attendees. This constitutes a 10-fold increase since the first AIMS (approximately 250 participants) and nearly double the number from AIMS 2010, which took place in Dresden. There were nearly 129 parallel sessions (very comparable to the 130+ sessions at Snowbird last year) and 12 plenary speakers.


Photo of the UAM Campus. Taken just outside of Edificio Ciences looking down the central walkway at Plaza Mayor in the distance.

The positive aspects of AIMS this year were numerous. Nearly all of the participants I spoke with agreed that Madrid was a fantastic host city in a gracious and welcoming country. The location itself was certainly an important draw, as AIMS 2012 in Orlando, Florida was attended by less than half the number of attendees this year. Many high-level academic and government officials took the time to make an appearance and convey their excitement about hosting so many talented mathematicians from around the world in their country.

The popularity of the conference this year had both positive and negative effects. Due to the high number of attendees, AIMS 2014 was truly an international conference, unlike Snowbird, which is still largely dominated by American scholars. The European location naturally drew a significantly higher number of European attendees, but also a far higher representation of participants from Asia, while still maintaining high levels of American participation. This broad collection of attendees from around the globe allowed me and others to attend talks given by speakers whom I have never seen before, in addition to those offered by the usual stalwarts of my field.

Among this large population, there were some outstanding mathematical talks presented, along with strong attendance at most talks. At my talk, I had the pleasure of engaging in several interesting conversations with international colleagues whom I will most likely never see at Snowbird. These conversations generated a number of promising new projects which we are enthusiastic to pursue. There were also many great plenaries: some highlights included an outstanding talk on “Robust Mechanisms for Chaotic Dynamics” by Amie Wilkinson and Cedric Villani’s talk entitled “Synthetic Theory of Ricci Curvature, When Monge Meets Riemann.” Thus, for me, the conference did exactly what it should: bring together a broad group of people to share ideas, network, and inspire further work.

Despite all these successes, there were a number of hiccups and hurdles at AIMS this year. The conference is so big that there are a multitude of parallel sessions at any given time. Snowbird has experienced this same problem, so that last year the organizers lowered talk lengths to 15 minutes each with 5 minute breaks in between to switch sessions. In contrast, AIMS allowed 30-minute talks with no built-in travel time to move between locations. This meant that the normal conference day ran from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. – 10½ hour days – which is simply too long and taxing even with two half-hour breaks and a one-and-a-half-hour lunch. Having experienced both formats, I would argue that lowering the talk length is preferable by far to dragging out the day so long.

A corollary to this problem was that, while a gracious host, UAM was unprepared to host a math conference of this size. The talks were scattered across a very large campus and switching sessions meant you were almost guaranteed to miss most of a talk. This spatial limitation is far less of a problem in conference centers such as Snowbird. It was also unfortunate that UAM was unable to provide an appropriate space for the plenary talks. On the first day of plenaries many attendees were turned away from the room where the talks were being held because it had reached capacity. The next day, satellite rooms with video feeds were set up for Villani’s talk to help address this issue. Unfortunately again, however, the video feed and sound in these rooms were very poor and many attendees simply left. Later plenaries experienced lower attendance due to these technical issues.

While it may seem trivial at first glance, by far the worst aspect of AIMS this year was the logistics of lunch. While feeding over 2500 people is certainly a challenge, it should not be a new one for the staff on such a large campus. Attendees were arbitrarily (as far as I could tell) assigned to different cafeterias around campus with no possibility of switching. The lunch lines also took anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get through. Thus, even with a generous 1.5-hour lunch time bracket, some participants raced to finish their food or did not get to eat at all so they could trek back to their talks. As we all know, lunch is generally the best time to talk with colleagues, discuss projects, and collaborate, but the logistics of lunch at AIMS 2014 barred such interactions from taking place. I cancelled a meeting with one colleague because we had been assigned to different cafeterias, and another colleague skipped her lunch so that we could meet.


Left: Back of the lunch line on a typical day at AIMS. Right: The lucky mathematicians who made it to the front before their sessions started again.

Overall, most attendees got what they wanted out of AIMS this year: to listen to excellent mathematics, catch up with old friends and colleagues, and enjoy a great host city. Because of its increasing popularity and recognition, AIMS is suffering from similar growing pains that Snowbird has dealt with. To make AIMS a more successful and streamlined conference in the future, it is worth taking note of the lessons other organizers have learned. Ultimately, most of the hiccups and hurdles I described here are tied to the host institution’s organizational capacity. Although conference centers have their own strange logic and vibe, the facility staff in such locations are generally well-trained and accustomed to hosting large-scale short-term events. Even with these obstacles, AIMS 2014 was both enjoyable and useful career-wise as many of us have come to expect. I look forward to continuing to attend AIMS in the future as the conference continues to mature.

David Uminsky
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