Tau Functions and their Applications

John Harnad is Director of the Mathematical Physics Laboratory at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, and Professor of Mathematics at Concordia University in Montréal. Over his career he has made numerous contributions to a variety of fields of mathematical physics, including: gauge field theory, integrable systems, random matrices, isomonodromic deformations and generating functions for graphical enumeration. He was the recipient of the 2006 Canadian Association of Physicists Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics.

Ferenc Balogh is Professor of Mathematics at John Abbott College, Montréal. He completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics under the supervision of John Harnad, with whom he has since collaborated on a number of research projects. His doctoral thesis was awarded the 2011 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Prize in Engineering and Natural Sciences.