Graduate mathematicians from the U.S. and Greece gather in Crete

It was a classic lineup of summertime fun: the lectures began by introducing nonlinear diffusion equations and eventually progressed to discussing fully nonlinear extrinsic flows.

Seventy graduate students in mathematics from Greece, the United States, and around Europe came together in Crete this year for two weeks of international postgraduate summer school on geometric flows, organized in collaboration between the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, based in Berkeley, and Crete’s Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics. The program, which joined lectures reflecting the latest mathematical developments with time for participants to discuss and work collaboratively on problems was supported in part by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

The aim was to create opportunities for early-career scholars, especially from Greece, to grow while promoting transatlantic collaboration and knowledge exchange. This parallels many other efforts SNF has supported, like the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program, designed to foster lasting international networks of academic collaboration.

More than 300 people were sufficiently thrilled by the idea of a summer spent studying mean curvature flow to apply for the 70 slots, showing that demand for opportunities like this is strong.