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SCCS Colloquium

The SCCS Colloquium is a forum giving students, guests, and members of the chair the opportunity to present their research insights, results, and challenges. Do you need ideas for your thesis topic? Do you want to meet your potential supervisor? Do you want to discuss your research with a diverse group of researchers, rehearse your conference talk, or simply cheer for your colleagues? Then this is the right place for you (and you are also welcome to bring your friends along).

Upcoming talks

Deniz Erdogan: Structure-Preserving Modeling of Non-Conservative Systems via Random Feature Hamiltonian Networks

SCCS Colloquium |

Modeling dynamical systems with complex interactions remains a significant challenge in computational science. While data-driven approaches offer flexibility, they often fail to respect fundamental physical laws, leading to poor generalization and energy drift over long time horizons. Although physics-informed learning, specifically Hamiltonian Neural Networks (HNNs), addresses this by enforcing a symplectic structure on the prediction vector field, standard HNNs are ill-equipped to handle real-world dissipative systems characterized by friction and external forces. Furthermore, training these networks using iterative backpropagation is often computationally expensive and sensitive to hyperparameter tuning. To address this, this work introduces the Random Dissipative Hamiltonian Neural Networks (RDHNN), a framework that combines structure-preserving deep learning with the non-iterative Sampling Where It Matters (SWIM) algorithm. By decomposing the vector field into conservative and dissipative components, the RDHNN simultaneously learns the Hamiltonian and a dissipative function. The network constructs activations from sampled data points in the hidden layers and computes output weights analytically that eliminates the need for iterative optimization. We evaluate the performance of RDHNN and a parameter efficient variant, the SharedRDHNN, on benchmark dynamical systems including the damped single and double pendulums, mass-spring systems, RLC circuits and Duffing and Morse oscillators. The proposed framework demonstrates extreme training efficiency and achieves speedup factors of over 5 orders of magnitude compared to Adam optimization while maintaining trajectory prediction accuracy comparable to or better than that of standard neural networks and HNNs. Furthermore, since it explicitly decomposes the system into conservative and dissipative terms, it provides interpretable insights into the dynamical contributions of separate components rather than functioning as a black box approximator.
 

Master's thesis presentation. Deniz is advised by Atamert Rahma, and Prof. Dr. Felix Dietrich.

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Contribute a talk

To register and schedule a talk, you should fill the form Colloquium Registration at least four weeks before the earliest preferred date, at the end of a semester typically even earlier reservation is necessary due to a very high influx of presentations. Keep in mind that we only have limited slots, so please plan your presentation early! In special cases, contact colloquium@mailsccs.in.tum.de.

Colloquium sessions are now on-campus. We have booked room MI 02.07.023 for WS25/26. You can either bring your own laptop or send us the slides as a PDF ahead of time. The projector only has an HDMI connection, so please bring your own adapters if necessary.

We invite students doing their Bachelor's or Master's thesis, as well as IDP, Guided Research, or similar projects at SCCS to give one 20min presentation to discuss their results and potential future work. The time for this is typically after submitting your final text. Check also with your study program regarding any requirements for a final presentation of your project work.

New: In regular times, we will now have slots for presenting early stage projects (talk time 2-10min). This is an optional opportunity for getting additional feedback early and there is no strict timeline.

Apart from students, we also welcome doctoral candidates and guests to present their projects.

During the colloquium, things usually go as follows:

  • 10min before the colloquium starts, the speakers setup their equipment with the help of the moderator. The moderator currently is Ana Cukarska. Make sure to be using an easily identifiable name in the online session's waiting room.
  • The colloquium starts with an introduction to the agenda and the moderator asks the speaker's advisor/host to put the talk into context.
  • Your talk starts. The scheduled time for your talk is normally 20min with additional 5-10min for discussion.
  • During the discussion session, the audience can ask questions, which are meant for clarification or for putting the talk into context. The audience can also ask questions in the chat.
  • Congratulations! Your talk is over and it's now time to celebrate! Have you already tried the parabolic slides that bring you from the third floor to the Magistrale?

Do you remember a talk that made you feel very happy for attending? Do you also remember a talk that confused you? What made these two experiences different?

Here are a few things to check if you want to improve your presentation:

  • What is the main idea that you want people to remember after your presentation? Do you make it crystal-clear? How quickly are you arriving to it?
  • Which aspects of your work can you cover in the given time frame, with a reasonable pace and good depth?
  • What can you leave out (but maybe have as back-up slides) to not confuse or overwhelm the audience?
  • How are you investing the crucial first two minutes of your presentation?
  • How much content do you have on your slides? Is all of it important? Will the audience know which part of a slide to look at? Will somebody from the last row be able to read the content? Will somebody with limited experience in your field have time to understand what is going on?
  • Are the figures clear? Are you explaining the axes or any other features clearly?

In any case, make sure to start preparing your talk early enough so that you can potentially discuss it, rehearse it, and improve it.

Here are a few good videos to find out more:

Did you know that the TUM English Writing Center can also help you with writing good slides?

Work with us!

Do your thesis/student project in Informatics / Mathematics / Physics: Student Projects at the SCCS.

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