- Series
- Algebra Seminar
- Time
- Monday, April 6, 2026 - 1:00pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
- Location
- Skiles 005
- Speaker
- Ikenna Nometa – Georgia Institute of Technology – https://www.ikennanometa.com/
- Organizer
- Donggyu Kim
A Brownian motion tree (BMT) model is a Gaussian model whose associated set of covariance matrices is linearly constrained according to common ancestry in a phylogenetic tree. This talk will discuss the complexity of inferring the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator for a BMT model by computing its ML-degree. The talk will highlight an explicit formula for the ML-degree of the BMT model on a star tree. We will also show that the ML-degree of a BMT model is independent of the choice of the root. This talk is based on work (doi.org/10.1016/j.jsc.2025.102482) with J. I. Coon, S. Cox, & A. Maraj.