Speaker: Melody Chan (Brown)Title: Moduli spaces in tropical geometryAbstract:I intend to give a true introduction, accessible to beginning graduate students, to the topics in the title: what is tropical geometry? What is a moduli space? And how can one be used to study the other? Then I’ll discuss some aspects of joint work with Francis Brown, Søren Galatius, and Sam Payne, in which we identify a Hopf algebraic structure on the weight 0 subspace of the compactly supported cohomology of the moduli space of abelian varieties and deduce a number of consequences.*Pre-colloquium reception at 4:00 pm in 553 Lake Hall.

Interasian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialismpresented by DR. CHIE IKEYA Associate Professor of History and Director, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers UniversityChallenging the Eurocentrism of postcolonial studies that remains preoccupied with Eurasian encounters and the European management of race, sex, and desire, this talk uncovers an obscured history of intimacy and estrangement between indigenous people and Asian migrants.

Chie Ikeya will discuss her research in transnational histories of Asian mobility and intimacy in the era of European colonial empires and her recent book, InterAsian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialism (Cornell University Press, 2024). Challenging the Eurocentrism of postcolonial studies that remains preoccupied with Eurasian encounters and the European management of race, sex, and desire, Ikeya uncovers an obscured history of intimacy and estrangement between indigenous people and Asian migrants. She will discuss how profoundly these “South-South,” interAsian interactions shaped modern understandings of identity and belonging that continue to vex Southeast Asian nations today.

The 21st Annual Operations Simulation Competition (OpsSimCom) 2025 is a student-led event where you can compete with students from around the country to see who can run the most profitable factory.Play for a prize pool totaling $2,500 - no travel required!Play an online simulation against teams from around the world to manage a factory: make investments, cut costs, borrow money, forecast demand, find bottlenecks, fulfill orders and satisfy customers! We've witnessed the best teams from around the world pit their wits against each other in what the game creator has called "possibly the most challenging assignment I've ever created." OpsSimCom will use a simulator specially designed for the competition, and no prior experience with the simulation is required. Even if you have played this game in class, this will not be a repeat of what you have seen before.Competition begins at 5PM EST on Wednesday April 16th and runs till Friday April 18th 5pm ETWebsite: OpsSimCom 2025 - Operations Management Club | MIT Sloan School of ManagementFAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MT9Hdx-jIP002QK_0J2aDX6MGG02lB0uQg8MGGp335U/editWebinar: April 14th @ 12PM ESThttps://mit.zoom.us/j/91412776156Registration Deadline: April 15th @ 11:59PM ESTTeam Prizes:First: $ 1,500Second: $750Third: $250Important Note: Prize money is awarded to people individually, not as a group, and is considered taxable income.Rules:All participants must be currently enrolled university studentsThe competition is entirely online, no travel is required.There is a limit of up to 4 students per team (and as low as 1 person per team)No limits on the number of teams per schoolNo help can be taken from professors or others outside of the teamEach person can only be on one teamTwo teams are not allowed to interact/help each otherRegistration:Each team must purchase 1 ticket on the eventbrite page to be confirmedQuestions?Reach out to opssimcom@mit.edu

Speaker: Vijay Srinivasan (MIT)Title: Abelian-by-finite families IAbstract:Reference:$\bullet$ Lawrence and Venkatesh, Diophantine problems and $p$-adic period mappings, second half of Section 6.