As a cutting-edge competence centre on inverse problems, the FAME Flagship is dedicated in training skilled professionals for various needs that arise from the industry and society. The recently introduced inverse problems university network is a prime example of FAME’s efforts to train Finland’s doctoral students in this essential field.
To deepen the available education practices and contribute to the inverse problems-related training internationally, the FAME Flagship continued its last year’s activities by organising an inverse problems summer school as part of the University of Jyväskylä’s annual Jyväskylä Summer School in August.
(Inverse) problem-solving
This year’s summer school activities consisted of two courses, free-of-charge for the participants and taught by esteemed guest lecturers from the international inversion problems community.
Dr. Tatiana Bubba is an Assistant Professor in Numerical Analysis at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Ferrara, Italy. She is also a Docent in Inverse Problems at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on computational inverse problems with applications to medical imaging and spent nuclear fuels imaging.
Dr. Babak Maboudi Afkham is an Assistant Professor at the Mathematical Sciences research unit in the University of Oulu. As part of the unit’s inversion problems research group, his research interests include such topics as uncertainty quantification, machine learning, and partial differential equations.
Dr. Bubba’s course, Mathematics of X-ray Computed Tomography, focused on the regularisation theory and how some signal processing ideas are relevant in the context of inverse problems. Dr. Maboudi Afkham delivered a course titled Introduction to Uncertainty Quantification for Inverse Problems, in which the Summer School participants got to explore how to formulate inverse problems within a Bayesian framework, define the solution to the inverse problem as the conditional probability distribution of the unknown given the measurements, and, finally, examine how to interpret the posterior to quantify the uncertainty in their predictions and reconstructions.
The inverse problems summer school witnessed 67 course completions in total. FAME extends our deepest gratitude to Dr. Bubba and Dr. Maboudi Afkham for their contribution in training the next generation of inverse problems experts, and we hope to see them return to Jyväskylä in the future!
Game on!
To facilitate opportunities for students to expand their professional and academic networks, the FAME Flagship also provided some well-deserved counterbalance to rigorous studying by inviting summer school participants to a game night at the Jyväskylän Keilahalli bowling alley. With bowling lanes, snooker, darts, and even sauna at their use, the participants seemed to have fun and relaxing time while engaging to some – presumably – friendly competition.
The FAME Flagship and inverse problems summer school will return to Jyväskylä in 2026!
Photo: University of Jyväskylä
