Faculty lightning talks are 15-minute talks geared toward our graduate students; however, all areas from the department welcome. Each date will feature three speakers.

Unless otherwise noted, all talks will be held from 4–5 pm in the Flawn Science Building (FLN), room 2.01.02.

Fall 2026 Mathematics Lightning Talks Schedule

Date Speaker and Topic
September 18, 2026 Dr. Eduardo Dueñez
What We Can Compute, What We Cannot—and the Wisdom To Know the Difference
September 18 abstract: Dueñez

My eclectic research tackles questions on what problems are "effectively computable"—drawing dividing lines between what can and cannot be computed, learned or "solved" under various assumptions on the approach (classical vs. quantum computing, discrete vs. continuous, deterministic vs. randomized) and the nature of the problem tackled. Embracing explicit applications, I worked as research consultant at Gibran.AI (a tech startup) in fall 2025 and summer 2026: I helped advance the state of the art on quantum error correction (QEC) algorithms and more. The computability and logic research group lead by Professor J. Iovino and myself has been mathematical home to some of our most talented students; I'm hoping for the nascent QEC Seminar Series organized by UT San Antonio Math faculty to become the cool "new kid on the block."
Dr. Fengxin Chen
Nonexistence of Time Almost-Periodic Solutions to the Nonlocal Allen-Cahn Equation
September 18 abstract: Chen

The main purpose of this talk is to study the dynamics of the solutions to the nonlocal Allen-Cahn equation:
ut= J * u - u + f(u)
where x ∈ RN, J * u(x) = ∫RNJ(x - y)u(y)dy is the convolution of J with u, and f is a smooth function. Using energy estimates, we prove that there exist no non-trivial time almost-periodic solutions to the nonlocal Allen-Cahn equation for N = 1,2. The case N ≥ 3 is still open.
Dr. Jingbo Liu 
Lattice Isomorphism Problem and Its Applications
September 18 abstract: Liu

A lattice in Rn is an additive discrete subgroup of Rn. We say that a lattice L is isometric to another lattice K if there exists a bijective ℤ-linear map σ: L → K such that |σ(x)| = |x| for all x ∈ L. In this talk, we will discuss the Lattice Isomorphism Problem and its applications to cryptography.
October 9, 2026 Dr. Su Liang
TBD
Dr. Benjamin Sencindiver
TBD
Dr. Stacy Jones
TBD
October 16, 2026 Dr. Juan B. Gutiérrez
TBD
Dr. Stephen Wirkus
TBD
Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
TBD