A scientific breakfast organised by Friends of IHES, and hosted by Marilyn and Jim Simons, took place at the Flatiron Institute, New York, on May 31.

Guest speaker Christian Borgs talked about Large Networks: from Mathematics to Machine Learning.

Trained as a mathematical physicist, Christian Borgs is Deputy Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, which he co-founded in 2008. His relationship with IHES dates back to the time when he wrote his Diploma thesis, before doing a PhD at the University of Munich.
His  current  research  concerns  the  science  of  networks,  including  graph theory,  graph  algorithms,  algorithmic  game theory and computational biology.  He is one of the inventors of the theory of graph limits, which is widely used in the learning and estimation of massive networks.

All attendants, including Emmanuel Ullmo, Director of IHES and Michael R. Douglas, Chairman and President of Friends of IHES, were enthusiastically fascinated by the topic discussed and the talk was followed by an animated session of questions and answers.

Friends of IHES and IHES warmly thank Marilyn and Jim Simons and the Flatiron Institute for hosting and supporting this event.