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Model Theory Seminar | James Rooney (McMaster University)
	
 Mar 23, 2026 
 12:30PM to 1:30PM





	





























Date/Time

Date(s) - 23/03/2026
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm





Speaker: James Rooney (McMaster University)


Location: Hamilton Hall, Room 410


Title: Catlab: Matlab for cats?


Abstract: Having taught the third-year computer science course “Principles of Programming Languages” for the last two years, I have been afforded the opportunity to spend a lot more time with my computer; learning new languages, exploring new environments, and discovering new interfaces. Naturally, most of these are distractions which do not make it into the class discussions. 



In this talk I invite you down the rabbit-hole with me to look for cats.



Category theory bills itself as a unifying theory of mathematical structures and their relations (and we probably all know a category theorist who will argue that it’s the only right way to do mathematics). Catlab.jl provides a framework for applied and computational category theory. 




We will explore what that looks like in practice- how are categories and functors represented computationally, and what can we do with them when they are? No previous knowledge of Julia or Category Theory is required- only a tolerance for rabbit-holes and a fondness for abstraction.