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Summer Research Associate Program

at Topos Institute

About

The Summer Research Associate program hosted by Topos Institute offers an opportunity for early career researchers to engage in cutting-edge research under the mentorship of experts affiliated with the institute. Research areas explored in the program include mathematics, especially category theory and mathematical logic; programming language theory and software systems; and philosophy, especially ethics of science and technology.

Previous RAs and Projects

2023

From the blog: Our summer research associates in 2023

• Harrison Grodin: Synthetic domain theory and polynomial functors in computer science
  • Mentor: Dana Scott and David Spivak
• Harper Hults: Statistical theories and probabilistic programming
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Blog post: Categorical statistics in Julia
• Samantha Jarvis: Constructing dynamic monoidal categories from reverse derivative categories
  • Mentor: David Spivak
• Stephen Mell: Graphical languages for distributive monoidal categories
  • Mentor: Kris Brown
• Luke Morris: Discrete exterior calculus on 3D semi-simplicial sets
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Software: CombinatorialSpaces.jl

2022

From the blog: Our summer research associates in 2022

• Angeline Aguinaldo: AI planning using categorical databases and rewriting
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Blog post: Using categorical logic for AI planning
• Anthony Agwu: Categorical semantics of untyped lambda calculus
  • Mentor: Dana Scott
  • Blog post: Scott's model of lambda calculus
• Alejandra Arciniegas: Technology ethics at Topos Institute
  • Mentor: Brendan Fong
  • Blog posts: Strategies for ethically oriented pursuit of research and technology; Project cards: a tool for research transparency
• Harrison Grodin: Programming language semantics using topology and domain theory
  • Mentor: Dana Scott
  • Blog post: Recursive Types via Domain Theory
• Michael Lambert: Double categories for knowledge representation and databases
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Blog post: Data operations are functorial semantics
• Joshua Meyers: Polynomial functors and computation
  • Mentor: David Spivak
  • Blog posts: Computation and category theory; Imagining bicomodules with type theory

2021

From the blog: Get to know our summer research associates

• Sophie Libkind: Mathematics and software for composing open dynamical systems
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Software: AlgebraicDynamics.jl
• Owen Lynch: Design and implementation of categorical databases ("struct acsets")
  • Mentor: Evan Patterson
  • Software: categorical databases ("acsets") in Catlab.jl
• David Jaz Myers: Categorical theory of dynamical systems
  • Mentor: David Spivak
  • See the book draft Categorical Systems Theory
• Nelson Niu: Polynomial functors
  • Mentor: David Spivak
  • See the Poly book coauthored with David Spivak