This grant supports an international conference on "Computational Analysis of Inverse Problem," to be held in May 16-18, 2013 at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida. The theme of the conference is on computation and analysis of inverse problems. Inverse problems have wide range of applications in medical imaging, remote sensing, tomography and nondestructive testing, machine learning, geophysics and statistical inference. In the past 20 years, there have been major advances in inverse problems and its foundational aspects, where methods of functional analysis, partial differential equations and applied harmonic analysis have played pivotal roles in guiding the computational methods. The aim of the conference is to bring together top international experts to facilitate collaboration and communication among researchers under the common theme of inverse problems. There will be 20 invited speakers from USA, Europe and Asia Pacific, 15 of them from USA. Funds from NSF shall provide support for graduate students and recent PhDs and cover partial expenses of some domestic senior researchers.
Inverse problems have wide range of applications including medical and other imaging techniques, location of oil and other mineral deposits underneath the earth's surface through remote sensing, creation of astrophysical images from telescope. In addition to the traditional application in medical imaging, which plays a big role in improving national health care, the theory and computational methods developed to study inverse problems have demonstrated a big impact on energy independence through more effective drilling of oil and natural gas. They also help us to deep our understanding of climate change through creation of astrophysical images. The conference will serve the purpose of encouraging communication and collaboration between researchers not only in different scientific disciplines and industries, but also across international boundaries. The conference is expected to attract many young researchers and graduate students to participate in conference activities, in particular women and other under-represented minorities. The participation of graduate students and young researchers from USA and other countries will give arise to a good opportunity for mentoring activities for these groups.
The project accomplishes its main purpose of supporting US scientists, in particular, young scientists who are recent Ph.Ds and current graduate students to participate inthe conference: Computational Analysis of Inverse Problem, which was successfully held in UCF in May 9-11,2013. More than 10 recent Ph.Ds were supported by this grant on both airfare and local accomodation. In addition, more than 20 current graduate students were partially supported using this grant. Many of the recent Ph.Ds and current graduate students are under-represented minorities. The PI and co-PIs, in the period of June 01,2013-July 31, 2014 used most of the remaining money to travel to importnt international conferences to enhance opportunity for research collaboration. In addtion, PI traveld to Pittsburgh, PA to do collaboratiave research with a faculty member in University of Pittsburgh, Prof. Xinfu Chen. He also invited Prof. Wollkind of Washongton State University at Pullman to give a talk at UCF. The aim of the proposed conference is to bring together top international experts to facilitate collaboration and communication among researchers under the common theme of inverse problems. The response from those young scientists supported by this NSF grant is very postive. They appreciated greatly this opportunity to learn and communicate directly with leading international experts the most exciting research trend and newest development in the field of inverse problems and their applications. Furthermore, PI, with travel support from this grant, produced a research paper in collaborator with Xinfu Chen of University of Pittsburgh and Yajing Zhang of Shanxi University, China. The paper is submitted for publication and is under review currently. The conference has expanded international collaborations in computational and analytical aspects of inverse problems, as well as joint research activities among universities, national laboratories and industries.
