Exploring the Power of Path Signatures – IMPRS Combo IV
Published September 26, 2025
From 24 to 26 September, our MPI hosted the fourth edition of the IMPRS Combo workshop, bringing together around 40 PhD students and PostDocs for an interdisciplinary deep dive into the Path Signature.
Originally introduced by Kuo-Tsai Chen in the 1950s, path signatures form an infinite collection of tensors defined by iterated integrals of a path’s coordinate functions. Today, they are at the heart of rough path theory in stochastic analysis and play an increasingly important role in diverse applications ranging from quantitative finance and data science to machine learning and mathematical physics.
The workshop combined introductory lectures with discussions across fields, allowing participants to explore the algebraic and analytic structures behind path signatures and their relevance in modern research. By fostering exchange and broadening horizons, IMPRS Combo IV once again highlighted the value of interdisciplinary learning within the mathematical sciences.
After successfully defending her doctoral thesis on “Computation and Complexity in Algebraic Geometry” Leonie Kayser will begin a new chapter this September as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern. Heartfelt congratulations!
Following the recent election, Angelo El Saliby, Leon Sebastian Duensing, and Sanjay Puneet Verma will serve as the new PhD representatives of our institute. We congratulate them and wish them every success in their new role.
Heartfelt congratulations to Giulio Zucal. He has been awarded the Otto Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society in recognition of his fundamental and innovative contributions to the study of graphs and hypergraphs during his doctoral research.
Three members of our Nonlinear Algebra group obtained their PhD degrees at UC Berkeley on May 22, and they were hooded by their advisor, Bernd Sturmfels. We congratulate and wish them all the best for their next steps.
Armin Pournaki has successfully completed his doctoral thesis on “Computational Approaches to the Analysis of Political Narratives”. He has now moved to the Institute of Sociology at the University of Bern, where he will contribute to the development of the Digital Society Lab. Congratulations!
Maria Alejandra Ramirez successfully defended her dissertation on Classical and Evolutionary Game Theory. She continues her scientific career as a postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Congratulations to Konstantin Kalinin on the successful defense of his doctoral dissertation in modern mathematical fluid dynamics and his appointment as William W. Elliott Assistant Research Professor of Mathematics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Well done!
Congratulations to Laura Casabella on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation on regular subdivisions at the interface of algebraic, tropical, and metric geometry. She has now joined Goethe University Frankfurt as a postdoctoral researcher.