Institute of Mathematics and Applications, Bhubaneswar
The Institute of Mathematics and Applications,, Bhubaneswar is an academic institution that was established by the government of Odisha in 1999. Its dual purposes are to conduct advanced research in pure and applied mathematics, and to provide postgraduate education leading to Masters and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics, computation and computational finance. The institute also runs training programs in schools aimed at increasing mathematics awareness and leading to competitions such as the Mathematics Olympiads. It is affiliated to Utkal University which is one of the largest affiliating universities.
History
The institute began functioning in 1999 inside a room of the Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Bhubaneswar. In July 2008, IMA acquired its own residential campus, built by Tata Steel in Bhubaneswar city, when it was established as a full-fledged, degree granting academic institution.
Campus
The main institute is a complex, which was designed by architect Karan Grover, with an investment of Rs. 140 million. The campus also includes computer laboratories, classrooms, a library, as well as residential accommodations. A play ground and a volleyball court are also included.
The institute offers a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics and Computing. The course includes the study of pure mathematics as well as mathematical modeling and the use of abstract methods to solve concrete problems. Computer Science is major and compulsory for every student and it includes the study of Algorithms design, analysis, Cellular Automata and other branches in Theoretical Computer Science. Rigorous training and lot of exposure in pure mathematics is given to the students. In the final semester, each student must submit a dissertation.
M.A./M.Sc. in Computational Finance
Finance as a subject has emerged to be an extremely involved branch of knowledge with growing number of stock exchanges and investors in the field. Risk and return that constitute cardinal aspects of the subject, remain as a major concern for every investor, individual as well as institutional. Volumes of data encountered in the process make investment decisions difficult. In apparently erratic behaviors of the market, however the mathematicians try to capture patterns vis- a-vis predictability, which may help investors decide on their investment. Computational finance otherwise called financial engineering deals with portfolio selection, options and futures, asset pricing, managing derivative markets and hedging under uncertainty. The course imparts, besides, basic grounding on finance, expertise for modeling under uncertainty, a high level of computational skill geared towards finance, knowledge of financial accounting and regulations. The aim is to produce a competent financial engineer capable of analyzing existing financial products and suggest new innovative products for the financial market.
M.A./M.Sc. in Mathematics with Data Science
From 2018, the institute started a master's degree course in Data Science, one of the emerging fields of the current day. It is a programme of 2 years, after which the candidates are granted a M.Sc. degree from the Utkal University.
