An Introduction to Categories with Haskell and Databases

Category theory is the language of structure and composition. It is the language of compose-able and coherent systems. It has been applied to neural networks and chemical networks, classical mechanics and quantum. It is pervasive in functional programming. If you've ever used a functor or a monad or a parametric type, you have used category theory. Recently, it's been applied to database design as well.

This talk will be an introduction to category theory through Haskell and database programming. We will look at how similarities between the two can be expressed in categories, and how the benefits of safety and abstraction that functional programmers enjoy can be had by database users, too.

Bio: Ryan teaches in the math department at UCO. He has long been interested in everything AI, cognition, language, and mathematics. Lately, he's been learning about applied category theory and numerical optimization.

Lunch: Pizza provided (including veggie options). Please RSVP by 9:00am morning of for food.