About LACIM

The Laboratoire d’Algèbre, de Combinatoire et d’Informatique Mathématique (LACIM) is a institutional research center at UQAM that brings together researchers, postdoctoral fellows and students whose main research themes are rooted in combinatorics and its links to algebra and computer science. LACIM is also a CRM research laboratory and the Canada Research Chair in Algebra, Combinatorics, and Mathematical Computer Science is associated with LACIM.

Research areas

LACIM first made its mark by developing the Theory of Combinatorial Species, which unifies and deepens the notion of combinatorial structures such as trees, graphs, permutations and words. Since its origins, LACIM’s research has been highly diversified. It is internationally recognized as one of the leading centers of research in algebraic combinatorics, combinatorial algebra, combinatorics on words and automata theory, with additional areas of research in bioinformatics and computational biology. LACIM has numerous collaborations with most of the world’s leading centers in this field, particularly in Canada, France and the United States.

History

LACIM grew out of an institutional combinatorics research group comprising Gilbert Labelle, Jacques Labelle, Pierre Leroux, François Bergeron and André Joyal, all professors in UQAM’s Department of Mathematics.

The team’s combinatorial research work began in the early 1980s, in conjunction with the establishment of the weekly LACIM Seminar. The first postdoctoral trainee was recruited in 1986, and the research group obtained its first joint research grants at that time. It was on the basis of these grants that the research group evolved into one of UQAM’s “Centre Institutionnel” in 1990.

Since then, LACIM members have trained over a hundred graduate students and welcomed over fifty postdoctoral fellows. Many of these postdoctoral fellows are now leading researchers in their fields on the international scene.

LACIM’s directors were:

  • Pierre Leroux (1990-1994, 1999-2002 et 2005-2008)
  • François Bergeron (1994-1998, 2008-2014)
  • Christophe Reutenauer (1998-1999, 2002-2005)
  • Srecko Brlek (2014-2016)
  • Christophe Hohlweg (2016-2023)
  • Franco Saliola (2022-2024)