Optimal Transport: Theory and Applications
Soumik Pal (University of Washington) , Young-Heon Kim (University of British Columbia)Sep 24, 2025 — Dec 5, 2025
About the course
The modern theory of Monge-Kantorovich optimal transport is barely three decades old. Already it has established itself as one of the most happening areas in mathematics. It lies at the intersection of analysis, geometry, and probability with numerous applications to physics, economics, and serious machine learning. This two quarter long graduate topics course will serve as an introduction to this rich and useful theory. We will roughly follow the following outline. Fall: Classical theory. Analytic description of solutions. Duality. Displacement convexity. The geometry of the Wasserstein space and Otto calculus. Winter: Entropy-regularized OT. Schroedinger bridges and statistical OT. This is a continuation of the sequence of OT+X courses under the Kantorovich Initiative.
Registration
This course is available for registration under the Western Dean's Agreement. To register, you must obtain the approval of the course instructor and you must complete the Western Dean's agreement form , using the details below. The completed form should be signed by your home institution department and school of graduate studies, then returned to the host institution of the course.
Enrollment Details
- Course Name
- Optimal Transport: Theory and Applications
- Date
- Sep 24, 2025 — Dec 5, 2025
- Course Number
- **University of Washington Students:** * University of Washington: Math 581 **All Other WDA Students:** * University of British Columbia: Math 566, section 101 yhkim@math.ubc.ca)
- Section Number
- Section Code
Instructor(s)
For help with completing the Western Dean’s agreement form, please contact the graduate student program coordinator at your institution. For more information about the agreement, please see the Western Dean's Agreement website
Other Course Details
Delivery Details
Registration
Students at Canadian PIMS Member Universities may register through the Western Deans Agreement for the “shadow course” offered at UBC (see registration details above). Students at UW may register directly for the UW course. Course codes and other registration details for students in either of these cases are listed in the registration section above. Students at other institutions should contact one of the instructors to attend the course as a non-registered student.
Class Schedule
- TBA
Remote Participation
Online instructions over Zoom. Written on a tablet. Notes will be provided. A Slack channel will be created for answering student questions. Weekly in person office hours will be held at UW and UBC.
Lecture notes will be distributed over Slack. Recorded lectures may be viewed on our YouTube channel.
Availability
This course may be open to students from universities outside of the PIMS network, and those coming from industry/government.