Organizing ‘Measure Transport for Inverse Problems and Data Assimilation’ at SIAM MDS26

May 18, 2026·

Bohan Chen

· 2 min read

Table of Contents

Overview

I am pleased to share that Hojjat Kaveh, Nicholas Nelsen, and I will be organizing a minisymposium titled

Measure Transport for Inverse Problems and Data Assimilation

at the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS26).

Minisymposium Abstract

Inverse problems and data assimilation require efficient characterization of posterior distributions from indirect and noisy observations, often in high-dimensional or function-space settings. Measure transport methods provide a powerful alternative to traditional sampling approaches by constructing maps that push forward simple reference measures to posterior distributions, enabling efficient sampling and amortized inference.

This minisymposium brings together recent developments in transport-based methodologies, spanning ideas from transport maps and ensemble Kalman methods to modern generative modeling approaches and operator-based formulations. Despite their different formulations, these approaches share a common perspective: casting inference as the pushforward of measures.

The session will highlight theoretical advances and computational methods, with the goal of clarifying connections between these approaches and identifying new directions for scalable uncertainty quantification.

Conference Details

Conference: SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS26)
Dates: November 16–20, 2026
Location: Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Format: Fully in person; remote and prerecorded presentations are not permitted
Conference hashtag: #SIAMMDS26

MDS26 will be held jointly with the SIAM Conference on Imaging Science (IS26) and the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM26).

Minisymposium Schedule

Update (July 14, 2026): SIAM has not yet posted the detailed MDS26 schedule or speaker index. The minisymposium’s session number, date, time, room, speakers, and talk titles are therefore still to be announced. SIAM states that these details will be published in July 2026 on the official Program & Abstracts page. I will update this post when the session assignment becomes available.

SIAM’s standard format for a minisymposium is four 25-minute presentations, with five additional minutes for discussion after each talk. A minisymposium may have up to three parts and twelve speakers.

Key Dates

April 20, 2026: Minisymposium proposal submission deadline
May 18, 2026: Minisymposium presentation abstract submission deadline
July 2026: Conference schedule and speaker index expected
August 17, 2026: Travel support application deadline
October 19, 2026: Early registration and hotel reservation deadlines
November 16–20, 2026: SIAM MDS26 in Salt Lake City

We hope to see many of you in Salt Lake City!

Last updated on May 18, 2026